The National Security Bureau (NSB) should continue to step up training and other measures to boost its cybersecurity expertise, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report yesterday.
The bureau has demonstrated its capability to swiftly detect and deter Chinese hackers, but more hackers — Chinese and from other nations — are increasingly targeting the bureau in hopes of tapping into its network for information, the report said.
The bureau is the leading agency on intelligence and while then-NSB director-general Lee Shying-jow (李翔宙) had established the Internet Safety Division, or the 7th Division, it should continue to step up efforts to improve employees’ cybersecurity skills, it said.
Photo: Reuters
The 7th Division is tasked with gathering and analyzing information from the Internet, researching and developing tools to aid in such endeavors, and maintaining counterhacking measures.
It is also to warn the country in the event of a looming cyberthreat.
As of last year, the proportion of NSB personnel who had obtained cybersecurity certificates had grown to 88.81 percent from 61.29 percent in 2015, but the certificates were only for first-level cybersecurity proficiency, the report said.
Security expert Chang Kuang-hung (張光宏) yesterday said that the bureau’s Internet resources were comparatively isolated and any attacks on the bureau were usually due to bad user habits opening “holes” and “back doors” for hackers to enter through.
The attacks on the NSB, regardless of model or behavior, are comparatively dull compared with cyberattacks that most Internet security services see in the private sector, he said.
Cyberattack tactics are always shifting and changing, and the bureau cannot just stand back and marvel at how the private sector “has reached this stage of expertise” when interacting with Internet security experts, he said.
Chang suggested that the bureau look into a few cases when it was attacked and create measures to prevent such incidents.
If the bureau is worried about information sensitivity, it could reach out to private-sector experts by hacking the Executive Yuan’s National Center for Cyber Security Technology and “repackaging” the case in question, allowing the bureau and civilian experts to interact freely on the subject, he said.
While there is no guarantee that the bureau would receive an immediate solution, reaching out would help it develop outside sources and foster stronger professional skills, he added.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
RSS