The HITCON hacking congress is seeking to help companies and individuals learn survival skills in a virtual world where cyberwarfare and hacking attacks have become increasingly common, the Association of Hackers in Taiwan said at its opening at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center yesterday.
“The world is being affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. Taiwan is a frontier of cyberwarfare and needs to pay attention to the situation and learn the necessary survival skills from hackers,” said Mars Cheng (鄭仲倫), a member of the association’s organizing team.
The annual event, which drew more than 1,000 participants this year, is Taiwan’s largest security technology conference for hackers, who gathered to “share the latest and advanced security technology, and have discussions with everyone,” the event’s Web site said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
More than 30 security research reports and state-of-the-art technologies are to be presented at the two-day meeting, themed “Survival Guide for the Cyber War,” the association said.
Cheng, a cyberthreat researcher at TXOne Networks’ IoT/ICS Security Research Labs and Trend Micro, said the hacking conference started with 50 participants 18 years ago, but now also influences the hacking scenes in Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
As information security has grown “explosively” in many areas over the past few years, human resources demand and technology development have also soared, Cheng said.
Information security has become a subject “about which people should have at least some knowledge,” he added.
“HITCON hopes to convey to Taiwanese why information security is so important,” he said, citing the example of Moscow’s and Kyiv’s cyberwarfare campaigns since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Taiwan had been targeted by hybrid cyberwarfare after China launched military exercises around the nation early this month.
She said she hopes Taiwanese can improve their ability to identify misinformation, and that information security professionals will join the government’s efforts to boost the nation’s overall resilience against cyberwarfare.
The organizers said HITCON encourages hackers to put their skills to good use.
“We hope that the energy and the spirit of the hacker community can keep protecting society and enterprises, and simultaneously satisfy the needs of the hacker community and enterprises,” they said on the event’s Web site.
A study published by online booking platform Expedia revealed searches for travel to Taipei have ballooned 2,786 percent following the lifting of COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions due to the city being a “designation dupe” for Seoul. The TikTok trend for duping — referring to substituting a designation for a more inexpensive alternative — helped propel interest in Taipei, it said in a consumer survey titled “Unpack ‘24,” which was conducted from September to October in 14 countries. Location dupes are “every bit as delightful as the tried-and-true places travelers love,” Expedia trend tracker Melanie Fish said of the year’s popular alternatives, which
SAFETY IN REGULATION: The proposal states that Chiayi should assess whether it is viable to establish such a district and draft rules to protect clients and sex workers The Chiayi City Council passed a motion yesterday to assess the viability of establishing a regulated red-light district. The council yesterday held its last session of the year, at which its fiscal 2024 budget was approved, along with 61 other proposals. The proposal to assess the viability of establishing a red-light district was put forward by independent Chiayi City Councilor Molly Yen (顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節). The proposal cited 2011 amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulate that city and county governments can pass autonomous regulations on the sex trade to manage the industry and guarantee industry workers’ rights. A ban on the
A small-scale protest that called on the government to cancel its plan to welcome Indian migrant workers in a bid to tackle Taiwan’s labor shortage was held in Taipei yesterday. During the protest, comprised of a few dozen people staged in front of the Presidential Office on Ketagalan Boulevard, the protest’s chief initiator, a woman identified only as “Yuna” said they wanted the central government to reconsider allowing migrant workers from India to enter Taiwan. Most people in Taiwan had little knowledge about the potential plan to allow in Indian migrant workers until a report in the media last month, she
STABILITY AND CHANGE: Flagging in recent polls, Ko this week pledged to maintain President Tsai’s foreign policy, with an emphasis on improving China relations Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday reiterated that he is “deep-green at heart” in response to accusations that he is pivoting his campaign to align closer with the ideology of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the face of flagging polls. Ko made the remark at an agricultural policy conference in Taipei, repeating his comments from an interview with CTS News a day earlier. Ko told the CTS host that he would continue to pursue President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) national defense and foreign policy in general, but with an emphasis on establishing a rapport with
RSS