AS Typhoon Chan-Hom followed close on the heels of Tropical Storm Linfa, many people were hoping that they could get a typhoon holiday. Typhoon Chan-Hom made its closest approach to Taiwan on Friday last week, but a fake holiday announcement appeared on the Internet as early as Tuesday with the headline “Executive Yuan’s Directorate-General of Personnel announces counties and cities having a typhoon holiday tomorrow.” After clicking on the link, Internet users found that it led to a Chinese Web site. Suspecting that there might be a virus or malware lurking there, they urged everyone not to click on the link, pointing out that the correct information could be obtained by visiting the Web site of the Executive Yuan’s Directorate-General of Personnel Administration or checking up on news media.
Data security experts observed that the title of the link was “Executive Yuan’s Directorate-General of Personnel announces counties and cities having a typhoon holiday tomorrow.” They said that one need only judge it logically to know there were problems with it, including the fact that the official title of the Executive Yuan department is the “Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, Executive Yuan,” so the word “administration” was missing from the link title. Apart from that, it was not possible that any information about suspension of work or classes would be announced at that point in time. The third and most suspicious point was that the Web site was based in China, as could be seen from the “.cn” suffix. The experts reminded the public to be careful about clicking on dubious links.
(Liberty Times, translated by Julian Clegg)
蓮花颱風之後又有昌鴻颱風接力，許多民眾期待能放颱風假。昌鴻颱風上週五最靠近台灣，但上週二網路卻已出現山寨版的放假公告，標題為「行政院人事總處公告明天放假縣市」。網友點選後發現是中國網站，懷疑藏有惡意病毒程式，呼籲大家別點選，並指出正確放假資訊可上行政院人事行政總處網站或通過新聞媒體查詢。
Photo taken from the Internet
照片由網路翻攝
資安專家表示，該連結標題為「行政院人事總處公告明天放假縣市」，只要依邏輯判斷就知道有問題，包括行政院正式名稱為「行政院人事行政總處」，該連結名稱少了「行政」兩字；另外當時時間點也不可能發佈任何停止上班上課訊息；第三點最可疑，因為網址來源是中國（.cn），提醒民眾點選不名連結要多加注意。
(自由時報記者陳炳宏)
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