China ramps up cyberattacks on Taiwan

Bloomberg News

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Taiwan is bracing for an onslaught of cyber attacks from mainland China ahead of local elections in November intended to undermine a president who has defied Beijing's efforts to bring the democratically ruled island under its control.

China, along with Russia and North Korea, may be increasingly testing out cyber hacking techniques in Taiwan before using them against the U.S. and other foreign powers, according to the Taiwanese government. The tests involve new malware tools mostly used to target government agencies including Taiwan's foreign and economy ministries, said Howard Jyan, director general of its cyber security department.

"Based on matching patterns, sophistication and other characteristics it's likely that the majority of the cyber attacks come from groups supported by China," Jyan told Bloomberg News. "We believe the number of cyber attacks will rise before the elections. Hackers and organizations will try to intervene."

Since taking office in May 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party have refused to recognize the Beijing government's claim to Taiwan. Beijing considers the island part of its territory, to be unified by force if necessary.

China has responded with a multipronged effort to squeeze her administration: Chipping away at the number of its diplomatic partners, ramping up military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, and pressuring foreign airlines and hotels to refer to Taiwan as part of China. China's campaign has also fueled a growing struggle for global influence with the U.S., which maintains informal ties with Taiwan despite moving its embassy to Beijing four decades ago.

"To some extent, Taiwan against China is David against Goliath," said Ben Read, head of cyber espionage analysis at U.S. cyber security firm FireEye Inc. "The volume we see and the resources would be hard for anyone to keep up with."

Taiwan's government endured 360 successful cyber attacks in 2017, Jyan said, possibly compromising sensitive and classified data. But the number of attempts was far greater: Some 20 million to 40 million were carried out each month last year, he estimated. Servers in civil, military and research departments have been targeted, including hospital systems hacked to steal personal health information and other private data.

China in turn has lashed out at Taiwan's intelligence agencies. On Sunday it demanded Taiwan "cease infiltration and sabotage activities against the mainland to avoid further harming increasingly complex and severe" relations, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing An Fengshan, spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office. The office didn't reply to faxed questions on Taiwan's accusations.

The Xinhua report was "fake information that sabotages cross-strait relations," said Alex Huang, a spokesman for Tsai's office.

Taiwan this month plans to open a government cyber security training program for companies and NGOs to send their IT personnel, with grants for up to 150 students yearly. Last year, it created a military cyber command. And it has earmarked more than $52 million in next year's budget to safeguard websites and databases most targeted by mainland cyber spies, the Taipei Times reported earlier this month.

The National Communications Commission said Tuesday that Taiwanese media could be fined if found to disseminate unverified or fake content that hurts the public interest.