Speaking in parliament, cyber security department director Chien Hung-wei said Taiwan’s government network faces “five million cyber-attacks and scans a day”
A Taiwanese minister shockingly revealed to the Taiwanese parliament that government agencies faced around five million cyber-attacks a day. The minister’s statement came after a report warned of increasing Chinese warfare targeting Taiwan.
Taiwanese officials have said earlier that the island faces millions of cyber-attacks every month and around half of these cyber-attacks are believed to have originated from China.
Speaking in parliament, cyber security department director Chien Hung-wei said Taiwan’s government network faces “five million cyber-attacks and scans a day”.
In the field of cyber security, a scan refers to an attempt to locate weakness in a server.
“We are strengthening the government’s defensive measures and collecting relevant data for analysis in a bid to stop the cyber-attacks when they are initiated”, Chien told lawmakers.
Taiwan accuses that China ramped up its cyber warfare against the island nation post 2016 when Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen as its president. Tsai Ing-wen views Taiwan as an independent nation.
Beijing views democratic Taiwan as part of its own territory and has vowed to one day seize the island, by force if necessary.
In a report released on Tuesday, Taiwan’s defence ministry warned, as part of the strategy to bring the island to heel, China has been “vigorously enhancing” its cyber warfare capabilities.
To prevent potential hacking, the ministry’s information security and protection centre detected and handled around 1.4 billion “anomalies” from 2019 to August 2021, according to the report.
After the Line messaging app reported abnormal account activities to the authorities, Taiwan’s police launched an investigation in July.
The hacked accounts belonged to “high ranking officials” in various government branches, local media said.
Last year, Taiwanese authorities said, in an attempt to steal data, Chinese hackers infiltrated at least 10 Taiwan government agencies and gained access to around 6,000 email accounts.
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