Two Control Yuan members are to investigate the deletion of about 424,000 news clips at Public Television Service (PTS), in an incident that exposed cybersecurity issues at government agencies.
PTS on Tuesday said that a contractor on Feb. 8 mistakenly deleted news clips produced between 2017 and January from its digital archive.
Although more than 320,000 clips were recovered by Friday last week, nearly 80,000 were lost, the network said.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
As PTS failed to prepare an offsite data backup system, Control Yuan members Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) and Lai Ting-ming (賴鼎銘) are to investigate whether the government had adequately overseen the network’s operations, and conducted regular checks of its management and contractors, they said in a statement.
In a legislative hearing on Wednesday, Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) said he had asked the Cabinet’s Department of Cyber Security and the National Communications Commission (NCC) to form a team with his ministry to investigate the incident.
NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said that the NCC would meet with PTS’ head of cybersecurity to learn the cause of the incident and create measures to prevent it from happening again.
PTS, categorized as key infrastructure under the Cyber Security Management Act (資通安全管理法), reported the incident to the NCC within an hour, citing problems in its data backup facilities, Wong said.
He added that the investigation would seek determine how the backup system malfunction resulted in the deletion of so many files.
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
NOT AN OPENING: Trump’s violation of international law does not affect China’s consideration in attacking Taiwan; Beijing lacks capability, not precedent, an official said Taiwanese officials see the US’ capture of the president of Venezuela as a powerful deterrent to Beijing’s aggression and a timely reminder of the US’ ability to defeat militaries equipped with Chinese-made weapons. The strikes that toppled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signaled to authoritarian leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), US President Donald Trump’s willingness to use military might for international affairs core to US interests, one senior official in Taipei’s security circle said. That reassured Taiwan, the person said. Taipei has also dismissed the idea that Trump’s apparent violation of international law could embolden Beijing, said the official, who was not
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
Snow this morning fell on Alishan for the first time in seven years, as a strong continental cold air mass sent temperatures plunging across Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The Alishan weather station, located at an elevation of about 2,200m in central Taiwan, recorded snowfall from 8:55am to 9:15am, when the temperature dropped to about 1°C, the CWA said. With increased moisture and low temperatures in the high-altitude Alishan area, the conditions were favorable for snow, CWA forecaster Tsai Yi-chi (蔡伊其) said. The last time snow fell at the Alishan weather station was on Jan. 10, 2018, while graupel fell there