The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) on Friday took into custody a manager of a company that sold illegal software allowing those interested in obtaining private information to send unidentified SMS text messages to infect cellphones.
Once a phone has been infected, the sender could listen in on private conversations and view the recipient’s text messages, police said, adding that people with cellphones using the Symbian 60 operating system were at the greatest risk of becoming infected.
VIOLATING PRIVACY
Members of the National Communications Commission (NCC) and other law enforcement agencies on Friday searched the company after receiving information from the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office, and discovered the illegal software along with chips.
A manager by the surname Koo (古) was taken into custody on charges of breaking the Communications Act (通訊傳播法) and violating privacy.
The CIB said that bugs in the Symbian operating system were exploited by the software, which was first invented in China in 2007, replacing more traditional methods of phone tapping where a chip had to be physically inserted into a phone.
RINGLESS CONNECTION
Once a phone had been infected via the text message, those interested in gaining personal information could call the cellphone using a special SIM card, the police said.
The target phone, however, would not ring when called with such a SIM card and all conversations made on it could be secretly heard by the original sender.
Messages sent to an infected phone would also be relayed back to the original sender of the software.
The CIB said this software would mostly be used by private investigation agencies to extract information on people having extramarital affairs, but the software had also been used to obtain business secrets.
CHECK PHONE BILLS
Police said that certain models of Nokia, LG and Samsung phones now use the Symbian 60 operating system and that users of such cellphones could determine whether they had been infected by the virus by reviewing their cellphone bills and looking at whether messages had been sent to any unidentified numbers.
Police advised cellphone users to always keep their cellphones with them, have passwords for the phone and check that their contact lists do not contain any unknown individuals.
Cellphone users can download the latest software updates to clear their phones of the spy software, police said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS