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.
Three cases of Candida auris, a fungus that can cause a yeast infection known as candidiasis in humans, have been reported in Taiwan over the past few years, but they did not display drug resistance, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said yesterday. Lo made the statement at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the Washington Post reported that the potentially deadly fungus is spreading in US hospitals. The fungus was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and poses a danger to immunocompromised people, with an estimated mortality rate of 30 to 60 percent, Lo
‘DIRE’: Taiwan would not engage in ‘dollar diplomacy,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after China reportedly offered Honduras up to US$3 billion to establish relations The government yesterday recalled its ambassador to Honduras after the Central American nation sent its foreign minister to China, signaling that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Suspicions concerning ties with Honduras are rife after Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday last week wrote on Twitter that her country would pursue diplomatic ties with China. Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina traveled to China on Wednesday “to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations” on instructions from Castro, Reuters yesterday quoted Honduran presidential spokesman Ivis Alvarado as saying. The government “has decided to immediately recall the ambassador to Honduras
SWITCH TO BEIJING: The government severed diplomatic relations about an hour after Honduras announced the move, saying that no semi-official ties would be maintained Taiwan severed diplomatic ties with Honduras and ended all cooperation with the Central American country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, about an hour and a half after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter at 8am Taiwan time that the nation would cut its ties with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Wednesday sent Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina to Beijing to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. She announced the plan on March 14 on Twitter. “To safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, Taiwan is terminating diplomatic ties with Honduras with immediate effect” after communication with
MEDIA, SOCIETY FOCUS: Doublethink Lab said that Beijing is trying to coerce countries that rely on China economically to pursue policies in its favor China has stronger influence over Taiwan’s media and society than any other country, the Taipei-based Doublethink Lab think tank said yesterday, as it announced its China Index gauging Beijing’s global influence. Taiwan ranked 11th overall among 82 countries assessed, but first in terms of social and media influence, Doublethink Lab chairman Puma Shen (沈伯洋) told a news conference in Taipei. More than 200 experts and academics participated in the project, including some highly influential figures, Shen said. The index collects information from countries worldwide to gauge China’s influence and assess how Chinese policies affect them, Shen said. In terms of Chinese