Chinese disinformation campaigns are becoming more selective over their targets, while the messages show an increased level of customization to target audiences, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party said on Friday.
Taiwan Statebuilding Party Kaohsiung chapter director Chou Tsu-yu (周則宇) said that on Friday he received a message in which the author claimed to be an editor at the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper).
The message said that Taiwan Statebuilding Party Taoyuan chapter head Lan Shih-po (藍士博) had been filmed entering a meeting with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members, Chou said.
He immediately suspected that the message was a “phishing” attempt and warned his colleagues, Chou said.
An encrypted file sent with the message had a Chinese Internet protocol address, another indicator that it was a Chinese attempt at disinformation, he said.
The Liberty Times said that its personnel would not send such a message nor obtain such footage, calling on the public not to be deceived.
Messages of this sort have previously been presented as from former US military officers, doctors abroad or lawyers, in the hope of lowering the guard of recipients, “but now they are posing as people who you are likely to come across in your everyday life,” Chou said.
A message claiming to be from a newspaper editor and citing a familiar name is enough to sow a seed of doubt, so everyone should be careful, he said.
The incident indicates that Beijing’s disinformation campaign is getting more sophisticated by the day, he said.
“China is still China. Its ultimate goal is to undermine and unravel Taiwan’s solidarity,” Chou said, urging people to be careful regarding information they receive.
Lan said that a friend recently received an e-mailed phishing attempt disguised as a customer complaint.
Chou’s and the friend’s cases show that Beijing has gotten a better handle on who people are in Taiwan and is customizing messages to better spread disinformation, Lan said.
Such attempts could also be Beijing’s attempts to deliver Trojan viruses and other malicious software that allow hackers to create backdoors into computer networks, he said.
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