The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said that a recent investigation has uncovered no signs of direct attacks from Chinese hackers.
The MND admitted, however, that loose security by officers had led to recent classified information leaks.
working from home
Some senior officers involved in major military exercises had brought their laptops home and continued to work.
Meanwhile, confidential information on their laptops was accessible by other Internet surfers as the officers used an Internet information sharing platform called "Foxy."
"The network is isolated from the Internet. It is a closed-circuit system [an intranet]," said Major General Chai Hui-chen (柴惠珍), division chief for the Ministry's Communications and Electronics Department.
`no signs of hacking'
"So far, we only discovered a few cases of attempts to save military information or documents into USB drives, but there is no sign of hacking attacks from outside our network," Chai said.
Chai said that the military's intranet was virus-free and hacker-free, adding that there was still room for improvement in how the military educated its personnel regarding the handling of classified information.
"For instance, it is our understanding that the recent cases of information leaks were the result of careless attitude," Chai said.
"Officers went home, logged on to the Internet and continued to work. But, they did not notice that their laptops were also automatically logged on to certain sharing platforms like `Foxy.' While they are working, information can be easily downloaded if somebody clicks `download' from the other side," she said.
prevention
To prevent similar information leaks in future, MND Spokesman Rear Admiral Wu Chi-fang (吳季方) said that the MND has and will continue its efforts to preventing classified information leaks.
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