A large amount of information was leaked in a hacking breach of city computers, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
The mayor said that a city investigation into a breach of city secretariat computers last week had revealed a “troublesome” leak of substantial information.
Taipei Department of Information Technology Commissioner Lee Wei-bin (李維斌) said a list of city department heads along with confidential information about them had been compromised.
The leak could complicate management of the city’s extensive use of messaging app Line groups by potentially allowing hackers to assume the names of secretaries to “friend” commissioners and their staff, he said.
Special caution would need to be taken over management of the groups to verify the identity of all their members, given that anyone within the groups could add new members, he added.
He said that to avoid further breaches, the department intended to install additional monitoring equipment to detect unusual activities on city systems.
A “backdoor” that infected the city secretariat’s computers was undetected using existing antivirus software, he said.
The city would review the existing divisions between computer systems among the city’s departments, secretariat and the mayoral office, he added.
In response to criticism from Taipei city councilors that the city government’s extensive use of Line groups creates security risks, Lee said there was an implicit tradeoff between perfect security and administrative efficiency.
Because Ko was already used to using the Line software and has already introduced it extensively within the city government, it would be costly and time-consuming for the city government to switch to using messaging software designed and hosted domestically, he said.
He added that the department was moving to impose clearer standards for Line usage.
In addition to current requirements that the service not be used for sending classified information, the city’s Line groups would be required to have designated members responsible for policing membership lists, he said.
Lee dismissed city councilors’ concern that a lack of rules requiring the preservation of Line records would allow the city government to hide important information from council purview.
He said Line conversations were confidential in the same manner as telephone calls or private discussions within the city government have been, while final decisions by the city government would still be recorded in official documents that are available to councilors.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS