Taiwan faced malicious cybersecurity threats at an average of about 15,000 times per second during the first six months of this year, an 80 percent increase from the same period last year, a report published yesterday by Fortinet showed.
A key hub of the global supply chain, Taiwan has in the past few years emerged as a hot spot for cybersecurity threats, the report by the US-based cybersecurity firm said.
Of the 412 billion malicious cybersecurity threats detected in the Asia-Pacific region during the first half of this year, Taiwan accounted for 55 percent, or 22.48 billion threats, the report said.
Photo: Reuters
On average, nearly 15,000 cyberattacks occurred per second, it said.
Meanwhile, the number of cyberattacks detected from January to June jumped 81.6 percent compared with the same period last year, it said.
The most common types of cyberattacks used by hackers include distributed denial of service attacks and DoublePulsar, a backdoor implant tool developed by the US National Security Agency, Fortinet said.
DoublePulsar, which was leaked by a hacker group in 2017, allows attackers to stealthily collect information and run malicious code on a target’s machine.
Although the amount of ransomware detected plunged 93.4 percent compared with last year, Taiwanese corporations should not let down their guard, as hackers are changing their techniques, the report said.
Instead of launching random attacks on software and hardware, hackers now focus more on targeted attacks to maximize their return on investment, it said.
Fortinet Taiwan manager Eric Wu (吳章銘) said that Taiwanese enterprises should deploy information security solutions driven by artificial intelligence systems, while adopting highly integrated and automated smart platforms.
In so doing, corporate information security teams can better understand vulnerabilities and quickly detect cyberattacks, Wu said.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
RSS