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NSB Web sites attacked

The country's top intelligence agency, the National Security Bureau (NSB), yesterday revealed that its Internet Web site had been paralyzed for half an hour by a recent hacker attack.

Chang Kuang-yuan (張光遠), director of the NSB's information department, said yesterday that the home page for KMT candidate Lien Chan's (連戰) campaign office also suffered a similar attack.

"The two hacker attacks were found to have come from users of the domestic Seednet network. Although they were not from China and there has been no indication of any hacker attempts from China, it does not mean China will not do it," he said.

Chang made the remarks at a public hearing in the legislature on issues related to hacker attacks against government or corporate computer systems.

Meanwhile, officials with the Ministry of National Defense said the military will build a self-detection mechanism in its computer network to guard against attacks, especially potential assaults from Chinese hackers.

The military will also try to distribute its systems in order to minimize the chance that its command system might break down if hackers launched a simultaneous attack against a single target.

Chang warned that the protective measures being adopted by the government and corporate institutions for their computer systems will not guarantee 100 percent safety, considering China's information attack capability is on the rise.

"Encryption and firewalls will not be enough for computer network safety. Before any improvement can be made, we have to be more cautious, especially from now until the presidential election, against possible attacks from China on our government computer systems," he said.

Chang said Beijing has established a cyberforce to carry out hacker or virus attacks against Taiwan's computer systems in a wide range of areas, from governmental agencies to financial institutions and business enterprises.

"From the perspective of information safety, hacker attacks have become an issue of national security. The NSB can not stay away from them," he said.

To enhance information safety countrywide Chang suggested that the government establish a special agency to tackle cyber crimes and write relevant regulations into law.

Computer attacks from China peaked last August after President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) redefined cross-strait relations as a "special state-to-state" in nature.

"These attacks began on Aug. 7 and included assaults targeting the NSB Web site," Chang said. "The Chinese launched the attacks from 168 different Internet sites, attempting to paralyze the Taiwan government's computer-based operations."

"The NSB monitored the attacks for three days before it intervened by blocking access from the unfriendly Web sites," he said.
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