It was stated on August 11 that personal data from about 15 million Kazakhs had been sold on the dark web, once again raising concerns regarding national security and the country’s quickly growing digital infrastructure. The database, said to include millions of records, allegedly came from Kazakhstan’s e-government system, according to The Diplomat. Kazakh authorities looked into the claim, and fact-checkers later found it could not be verified because the documents provided as evidence were not related to the e-government system.

Despite this, the episode highlights a broader issue in Central Asia: the pace of digitization is outpacing the region’s capacity to manage the security risks it entails. Governments are rapidly moving public services, financial transactions, identification systems, and administrative procedures online. While this shift makes life easier for both citizens and administrators, it also creates broader opportunities for digital attacks. Without improved cybersecurity governance and faster incident response, the very modernization efforts meant to strengthen these states could become their weakness. Kazakhstan shows the extent of the situation: according to government data, more than 15 million people are registered on its e-government portal, and about 90 percent of its 1,300 government services are now available online. The first problem is that so much sensitive information is concentrated in one system.

The central paradox of digital governance is that the more services a government brings online, the greater the efficiency gains, the greater........

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