Beijing’s cognitive warfare tactics against Taiwan are becoming more sophisticated, with hackers targeting network devices to spread disinformation as next year’s presidential and legislative elections near, prosecutors and judicial authorities said, adding that several hacks targeting Taiwanese had been traced to Hong Kong.
Cognitive warfare tactics against Taiwan are constantly evolving, from disseminating disinformation through crude messages using simplified Chinese characters and Chinese slang during the COVID-19 pandemic to spreading false news through nearly 1,500 social media accounts during the run-up to last year’s local elections, sources familiar with the matter said.
This year, foreign forces have shifted their methods, hacking Internet of Things (IoT) devices in Taiwan that use weak passwords to spread disinformation as though it was coming from a Taiwanese, the sources said.
Photo: REUTERS
The hackers seek to publish messages through a target’s social media account after gaining control of their devices, and then delete connection records to try to hide the origin of the poster, they said.
The actions are an attempt to divide Taiwan from within to intensify political conflicts, they said.
Investigators looking into the hacking cases said that Hong Kong has become an important base for launching cyberattacks against Taiwan, as major recent disinformation campaigns have been found to have originated in Hong Kong.
For example, online posts saying that officials had smuggled cigarettes during the president’s trip to Central America in April came from a hacked router in a motel in Kaohsiung, the Cyber Security Investigation Office said.
Using an Internet protocol address in Hong Kong, a hacker logged into a Facebook account they created and took control of two accounts of Taiwanese on the Mobile01.com Web site, and used the three accounts to make posts showing altered cigarette purchase orders, it said.
Although the hacker deleted their connection records, authorities traced the posts on the three Taiwanese accounts to the router, prosecutors and judicial authorities said.
Regarding online rumors in April saying that Chinese missiles had breached Taiwan’s airspace, the Cyber Security Investigation Office said that those posts had also originated in Hong Kong.
A foreign actor had hacked into a router of an international shipping company in Taoyuan through a device in Hong Kong at UCloud Technology Co (優刻得), which offers colocation services for servers and network equipment, and logged into a Professional Technology Temple (PTT) bulletin board system account owned by a Taiwanese to post about the missiles, it said.
To prevent disinformation from affecting the elections, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office is heading up an investigation team focused on major national disinformation cases, while other cases are to be handled by local district prosecutors’ offices, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said.
Dedicated chief prosecutors are to be assigned by local offices in the six special municipalities to handle the cases, it added.
The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau urges people to delete unused social media accounts, update their IoT devices and use strong passwords.
People should carefully verify online information and avoid spreading it before confirming its authenticity, the bureau added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue