China-made commercial drones might contain back doors and malware that transmit flight and video data to the government in China, an official said yesterday.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the senior official said that Chinese drones, widely used by farmers for crop dusting, pose a significant cybersecurity threat to users and the government.
Beijing has unrestricted access to private user data held by Chinese corporations, which are obligated to cooperate with the country’s national intelligence efforts under China’s National Intelligence Law, the official said.
Photo courtesy of a reader
In Taipei, government agencies have taken steps to remove Chinese-manufactured devices and software from official use as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has made cybersecurity a priority in her national security policy, the source said.
Security protocols were tightened to no longer allow middle and high-ranking officials to use Chinese-made electronics for work or personal use, they said.
The official spoke on the matter following a statement by the National Communications Commission (NCC) on Thursday that said Xiaomi Corp’s (小米) Mi 10T 5G smartphones have built-in censorship capabilities and can transmit user data to servers in Beijing.
The commission said that its Telecommunications Technology Center in October last year tested a model sold in Taiwan, after the Lithuanian National Cyber Security Center on Sep. 21 last year discovered the device’s censorship capabilities.
The official yesterday said that while Xiaomi disavowed security issues with its products by saying that the features did not appear in models sold in Taiwan and Europe, the claims were not supported by the NCC’s independent analysis, and its report raised troubling implications about Chinese electronics.
The ban on devices applies to government employees only and not private citizens, the source said, adding that the government could only advise the public against buying products with compromised security features.
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,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS