A software technician was arrested yesterday on charges of allegedly having a written a "Trojan horse" program -- a malicious computer program that masquerades as a harmless one -- that caused damage to computer systems at the Presidential Office, the Ministry of National Defense and more than 200 private firms last month.
The National Police Administration's Internet Crime Investigation Squad identified the suspect as Pingtung native Wang Ping-an (
After being arrested at his Kaohsiung residence, Wang allegedly told police that he had tried to sell the "Trojan horse" program on the Internet last month and that a Chinese hacker had e-mailed him to say that he was interested in the program. The Chinese hacker allegedly offered to trade other computer programs for the program that Wang had created.
Wang allegedly told police that it never occurred to him that Chinese intelligence officials might take advantage of his work to harm Taiwan's computer systems or endanger its national security.
Law enforcement officers are investigating whether Wang has worked with Chinese authorities on other hacking projects, has implanted the program on computer systems related to national security or has stolen classified information.
"He told us that he created the program because he has nothing to do after work because he does not have a girlfriend. So he decided to spend his time on computers instead," said Eric Lee (
"The program he created implants a `back door' and a virus on computer systems, allowing hackers to steal data from a system whenever they want to," Lee said.
Lee said that Wang has been called "the glory of Taiwanese hackers" on the Internet because he allegedly taught Chinese hackers how to hack Taiwanese computer systems.
According to police, Lee does not have a degree from a famous college or university.
"He only earned an associate degree from a junior college. Everything he did was the result of self-study," Lee said.
"However, the program he created is very powerful. It can avoid detection by firewalls and anti-virus programs," Lee said.
Lee said that police are worried that Wang's program might have fallen into the hands of fraudsters. If it has, credit cards, check cards and health insurance cards will become very vulnerable.
According to Lee, software that protects against the "Trojan horse" can be downloaded from the Web site of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater