The National Communications Commission (NCC) is to meet with the Public Television Service (PTS) today to address issues with its information security system, after the network on Tuesday said that a contractor might have deleted nearly 80,000 news clips from its digital archive.
The error affected about 424,000 news clips produced between 2016 and last year, the network said, adding that about 340,000 clips were recovered by Friday last week, but about 80,000 were yet to be recovered.
PTS said that it is seeking restitution from the contractor.
Photo: Yang Mien-chieh, Taipei Times
NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said the network is categorized as key infrastructure.
Based on the Cyber Security Management Act (資通安全管理法), it is obligated to report any information security breach to the NCC, he said.
PTS must also submit its information security and offsite backup plans to the NCC, Wong said, adding that the network must back up all materials into an archive.
NCC records show that PTS detected an abnormality on its backup system on Feb. 8 at 5:50pm and reported the incident to the NCC at 6:06pm, Wong said, adding that the network categorized the incident as a “Level-1 Information Security Breach.”
The network last month told the NCC that its backup system “lost function,” the commission said.
“We will investigate why the third-party contractor committed such a serious error and why the PTS failed to detect the problems with the backup system, despite having conducted information security drills,” he said.
In other news, the commission said it would summon all stakeholders in a Mirror News management reshuffle to be questioned by NCC commissioners, as the channel has changed its chairman twice since obtaining its license on Jan. 19.
On March 4, board members removed then-Mirror News chairman Chen Jian-ping (陳建平) and president Lee Yu-pei (李玉珮) from their posts following allegations that Chen interfered in the operations of the news department.
Paper Windmill Theater Troupe founder Lee Yung-feng (李永豐) was elected chairman and former Formosa News vice president Paul Tsai (蔡滄波) was elected president.
On Tuesday, Lee Yung-feng resigned, and the board elected director Yang Ya-che (楊雅?) to replace him as chairman.
Wong said that the channel on Wednesday last week filed an application to change its management.
“We then asked the channel if it would like to retract its application following the second management reshuffle, and they told us they would instead apply for a change of business plan, which will include the management change,” he said.
Chen has taken legal action to dispute the validity of the management shuffle and filed a complaint with the commission.
NCC Department of Broadcasting and Content Affairs Director Huang Wen-che (黃文哲) said that the commission would not exclude the possibility of inviting Chen and other stakeholders to clarify information.
The channel was granted a license after agreeing to 26 conditions set by the commission, including keeping Mirror News and Mirror Magazine separate, and prohibiting abnormal or illegal transactions between shareholders and the channel.
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