A US Department of Justice indictment against Chinese hackers serves as an exemplary model and a solid foundation on which closer US-Taiwan collaboration could be pursued, Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) Director-General Leu Wen-jong (呂文忠) said yesterday.
Leu made the remarks at a news conference where FBI liaison to Taiwan Nicholas Garcia told reporters that the US would continue to collaborate with Taiwan.
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday charged five Chinese nationals with working with the Chinese government to target companies developing vaccines for COVID-19, and with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies worldwide, as well as money laundering and identity theft.
Photo: CNA
The five — Jiang Lizhi (蔣立志), Zhang Haoran (張浩然), Tan Dailin (譚戴林), Qian Chuan (錢川) and Fu Qiang (付強) — were part of a Chinese hacker group designated as Advanced Persistent Threat 41, or APT41, the indictment says.
In May, CPC Corp, Taiwan (中油), Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) and Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技) were hacked, and an MJIB investigation traced the hacker group to China, Leu said, adding that it informed the US of the incident, as the hackers had routed their IP address through a cloud server based in California.
Using information provided by the MJIB, the FBI analyzed and tracked IP addresses used to conduct command-and-control actions and suspected that Sichuan-based APT41, comprised of current or former employees of Chengdu 404 Network Technology, a Chinese company, had initiated the attack, Leu said.
The FBI considers the group to have close links with the Chinese Ministry of State Security.
Jiang, Qian and Fu operated undercover as Chengdu 404 employees, while Zhang and Tan worked independently to target high-tech firms and gaming companies, Leu said.
The MJIB’s investigative efforts overseas frequently encounter obstacles and this case could serve as an exemplary collaboration on which other US-Taiwan investigations could be built, allowing the MJIB to fulfill its duties as the nation’s bulwark against cybercrime, Leu said.
Speaking on behalf of the US, Garcia said that hackers targeting key facilities and intellectual property are a global threat and that the FBI thanks the MJIB for providing critical information that led it to crack the case.
Garcia quoted FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich as saying during a US Department of Justice conference on Wednesday: “Cyberthreats are not a problem that any one agency can address by itself — so, central to our strategy is the role the FBI plays as an indispensable partner to our federal counterparts.”
The FBI would continue to work with trustworthy partners, such as the MJIB, Garcia added.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS