Taiwan yesterday said that hacking groups linked to the Chinese government had attacked at least 10 government agencies and about 6,000 e-mail accounts of government officials in an “infiltration” to steal important data.
“Chinese hacking groups have been infiltrating government agencies and their information service providers for a long time,” said Liu Chia-zung (劉家榮), deputy director of the Cyber Security Investigation Office of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau (MJIB).
“They were aiming to acquire important government documents and data,” Liu told reporters at a briefing in Taipei. “Some government data might have been leaked. This has posed a great threat.”
Photo: Yimou Lee, Reuters
The attacks started as early as 2018, Liu’s office said.
Liu identified four main groups of hackers: Blacktech, Taidoor, MustangPanda and APT40.
While they managed to gain access to government systems, Liu said that investigators had been unable to identify what data has been stolen, other than a leak of about 6,000 government e-mails in one case, as the hackers had covered their tracks.
Among those who were attacked and infiltrated by two of the hacking groups were at least four Taiwanese tech companies that had been providing information services to the government, the office said.
Liu said the government believes that the hacking groups Blacktech and Taidoor are backed by the Chinese Communist Party.
They targeted loopholes in the systems provided by the government’s information service providers, he said.
Government agencies should increase scrutiny of their providers, Liu said.
He said his office was investigating service supply chains to see if any Taiwanese firms or individuals worked with the hackers.
Taiwan has long been wary of Chinese hackers’ attempts to infiltrate its systems.
In the run-up to January’s presidential election, Department of Cyber Security Director Jyan Hong-wei (簡宏偉) estimated that Chinese agencies attempted about 30 million cyberattacks per month against Taiwan.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment on Liu’s allegations.
The Chinese government routinely denies involvement in hacking and has said that it punishes those who do it.
Additional reporting by staff writer and Bloomberg
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
RSS