A young man, surnamed Chung (鍾), has been identified as the alleged hacker behind a series of attacks on the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, the Presidential Office, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and the central bank, the bureau said yesterday.
Investigators believe Chung has launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and uploaded the videos of those attacks to YouTube, the bureau’s Taipei office said.
Chung’s motive is apparently to advertise his hacker-for-hire Web site, TDDoS.pw, which he set up with Poland-based hackers in February and has since attracted more than 2,000 members, the bureau said.
Photo: CNA
The Web site bills itself as the most powerful DDoS attack service provider in the nation, and performs cyberattacks and stress testing for users who pay with bitcoin, the bureau said.
On Monday, investigators questioned Chung at his residence and seized an unspecified number of devices, the bureau said.
Data extracted from his computer showed that Chung has carried out more than 20,000 attacks on networks worldwide, including government offices, online gambling firms and financial holding companies, the bureau said.
Since many of the attacks were staged as proof of ability, they tended to occur late at night and the duration was less than a minute, it said.
As a result, many institutions allegedly targeted by Chung were unaware that their network services had been disrupted, it added.
Five people are being investigated on suspicion that they hired Chung to carry out cyberattacks, it said.
The bureau urged government agencies and private companies to improve their protection against DDoS attacks.
EIGHT-YEAR WINDOW: Avril Haines said that Beijing is closely watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although Moscow’s actions have not sped up Beijing’s timeline The threat posed by China to Taiwan until 2030 is “critical,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Tuesday while testifying on worldwide threats at a hearing of the US Senate Committee on Armed Services. “I think it’s fair to say that it’s critical, or acute,” Haines said when asked by US Senator Josh Hawley if she viewed the threat facing Taiwan to be acute from now until 2030. “It’s our view that they [China] are working hard to effectively put themselves into a position in which their military is capable of taking Taiwan over our intervention,” she said, without
‘DAMOCLES SWORD’: An Italian missionary said the arrest of cardinal Zen is a blow for the church in Hong Kong, China and the world, signaling great danger ahead China yesterday defended the arrest of a 90-year-old Catholic cardinal under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, a move that triggered international outrage and deepened concerns over Beijing’s crackdown on freedoms in the territory. Retired cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君), one of the most senior Catholic clerics in Asia, was among a group of veteran democracy advocates arrested on Wednesday for “colluding with foreign forces.” Pop singer Denise Ho (何韻詩), veteran barrister Margaret Ng (吳靄儀) and cultural studies academic Hui Po-keung (許寶強) were also arrested, the latter as he attempted to fly to Europe to take up an academic post. Cyd Ho (何秀蘭), a democracy
NO CONSENSUS YET: Local governments and the CECC have agreed to change the ‘3+4’ self-isolation policy, but are still mulling what to replace it with The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) and local governments have agreed to ease restrictions on close contacts of COVID-19 cases, although the details are still being discussed, the center said yesterday. The discussions follow Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Saturday approving a proposal to shorten the “3+4” policy — three days of home isolation followed by four days of self-disease prevention — for close contacts who have received booster doses. “We did not reach a consensus on how to revise the current restrictions, but we all agreed that the administrative burden must be reduced and the intensity of restrictions must be eased,
OPPOSING CHINESE ‘HOSTILITY’: The bill orders the state secretary to create a plan to regain observer status for Taiwan, saying Taipei is a model contributor to world health US President Joe Biden on Friday signed a bill into law to help Taiwan regain observer status at the World Health Assembly (WHA), demonstrating Washington’s support for Taiwan’s international participation. Friday was the deadline for Biden to sign the bill (S.812), which directs “the Secretary of State to develop a strategy to regain observer status for Taiwan in the World Health Organization (WHO), and for other purposes.” The 75th WHA, the decisionmaking body of the WHO, is scheduled to meet in Geneva, Switzerland, from Sunday next week to May 28. The bill, introduced by US Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the US Senate
RSS