Taiwan government faces 5 million cyber attacks daily, says Official

 

In a shocking reveal; a Taiwanese minister told the Taiwanese parliament that government agencies faced around five million cyber attacks a day.

The minister’s statement came after a report warned of increasing Chinese warfare targeting Taiwan.

Taiwanese officials have said earlier that the island faces millions cyber attacks every month.

They have said that around half of these attacks are believed to have originated from China.

Speaking in parliament, cyber security department director Chien Hung-wei said Taiwan’s government network faces “five million attacks and scans a day”.

In the field of cyber security; a scan refers to an attempt to locate weakness in a server.

“We are strengthening the government’s defensive measures and collecting relevant data for analysis in a bid to stop the attacks when they are initiated,” Chien told lawmakers.

Taiwan accuses that China ramped up its cyber warfare against the island nation post 2016; when Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen as its president.

Tsai Ing-wen views Taiwan as an independent nation.

Beijing views democratic Taiwan as part of its own territory and has vowed to one day seize the island, by force if necessary.

In a report released on Tuesday, Taiwan’s defence ministry warned that China has been “vigorously enhancing” its cyber warfare capabilities as part of the strategy to bring the island to heel.

The ministry’s information security and protection centre detected and handled around 1.4 billion “anomalies” from 2019 to August 2021; to prevent potential hacking, according to the report.

In July, Taiwan’s police launched an investigation after the Line messaging app reported abnormal account activities to the authorities.

Local media said the hacked accounts belonged to “high ranking officials” in various government branches.

Last year, Taiwanese authorities said Chinese hackers infiltrated at least 10 Taiwan government agencies and gained access to around 6,000 email accounts in an attempt to steal data.