Taiwan Government faces 5 Million hacking attempts daily

Taiwan ‘s government agencies face around five million cyberattacks and probes every day, most of them from China.

Around five million cyber attacks hit Taiwan’s government agencies every day, and most of the hacking attempts are originated from China.

Cyber security department director Chien Hung-wei told parliament representatives that government infrastructure faces “five million attacks and scans a day”.

“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’s defence ministry warns of an increase in the attacks carried by China-linked actors against its systems.

The attacks against the country attributed to China raised since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen, who always claimed the independence of the island from Beijing. On the other end, the Chinese government considers the island its territory and does not exclude its military occupation in the future.

The ministry’s information security and protection centre handled around 1.4 billion “anomalies” from 2019 to August 2021, according to the report shared by Taiwan’s defence ministry.

In August 2020, Chinese hackers gained access to around 6,000 email accounts belonging to at least 10 Taiwan government agencies, officials said.

According to a top Taiwan cyber official, the attacks were part of a cyber espionage campaign. According to the Taiwan Investigation Bureau’s Cyber Security Investigation Office, the China-linked cyberespionage groups tracked as Blacktech and Taidoor have been targeting government agencies and information service providers since 2018.

The Chinese government has increased diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan over the years, it also showed the muscles increasing military drills near the country in recent weeks.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Taiwan Government)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.