A Chinese national surnamed Tong (童) has been named the prime suspect in Taiwan’s largest data leak and is now a wanted person, while a Taiwanese surnamed Cheng (鄭) was indicted for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
The prosecutors’ office launched an investigation after the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau forwarded the case to it.
The office said that Tong — who reportedly used OKE as an online persona — is suspected of listing 23.57 million household registration records obtained via hacks for sale on BreachForums in October last year, seeking a cryptocurrency payment of US$5,000.
Photo: AP
The data were primarily from before April 2018, prosecutors said.
Tong was named the primary suspect, as an electronic wallet in his name was designated as the recipient for the cryptocurrency transaction, prosecutors said.
The wallet had been active and Tong could have transferred funds from it into fiat currency in China, they said.
Cheng on Oct. 31 last year allegedly purchased the hacked data, using the ACE Exchange to transfer 4,999.2 Tether tokens to Tong’s wallet, prosecutors said.
At the time of the trade, one Tether token was worth US$1.0003 when the market opened and US$1.0002 at the close of the day.
Cheng told investigators that he had made the purchase because he wanted to know if personal information could be bought, the office said.
Prosecutors recommended that Cheng’s indictment be deferred for one year, as he had shown remorse, had not used the data for illegal activities and had agreed to delete the information.
He should pay the state NT$500,000 in compensation, they said.
The office instructed the bureau’s Digital Security Division to continue to track the hacker who breached the Ministry of the Interior’s servers.
However, as the incident occurred in 2018, equipment and system data from other agencies that might have been connected to the household registration data servers were no longer stored, the bureau said.
The US Department of Justice, the FBI, the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the US Inspector-General on June 23 seized the clearnet domain for BreachForums under a warrant issued by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
TRUST: The KMT said it respected the US’ timing and considerations, and hoped it would continue to honor its commitments to helping Taiwan bolster its defenses and deterrence US President Donald Trump is delaying a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan to ensure his visit to Beijing is successful, a New York Times report said. The weapons sales package has stalled in the US Department of State, the report said, citing US officials it did not identify. The White House has told agencies not to push forward ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it said. The two last month held a phone call to discuss trade and geopolitical flashpoints ahead of the summit. Xi raised the Taiwan issue and urged the US to handle arms sales to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
RSS