Nearly 1,000 New Taipei City (新北市) Government employees recently failed an information security test due to their curiosity about an e-mail claiming to contain the latest sex video of Justin Lee (李宗瑞).
Two weeks ago, all 6,179 New Taipei City Government employees received an e-mail titled “Justin Lee’s sex videos, download it, quick.” However, the 996 city government workers who opened the e-mail on their office computers found no video attachments, but rather received a notice from their superior asking them to attend a two-hour information security class.
“This is a test, it’s designed to attract you to open the e-mail,” he director of the New Taipei City Government’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Wu Chao-ming (吳肇銘), said yesterday. “As a city government employee, you should know not to open an e-mail unrelated to business or from an unknown sender on an office computer during office hours — no one should have failed the test.”
Wu said the e-mail test is part of the city government’s project to protect against hacking attacks on office computers through e-mail.
“Most hackers take advantage of people’s curiosity to hack into computers or databases, and when someone hacks into a government database, it could be a serious problem because they could steal classified information, including private data on millions of people,” Wu said. “We consider random tests to be important reminders to our employees about information security.”
The 996 people who opened the e-mail will be required to take a two-hour class about data security, he added.
The employees reacted differently to the test.
“It will be quite embarrassing to attend the class, but I have no one to blame except myself. I should not have opened the e-mail and now I’ve learned my lesson,” a city government employee surnamed Huang (黃) said.
Another employee surnamed Chang (張), who did not open the e-mail, said he believes these types of tests are a good idea.
“I think it’s a good idea, because, though we’ve always heard about the importance of information security, we feel it’s not something that has anything to do with us ordinary government employees,” Chang said. “The test makes us realize that it’s actually something closely related to us, and something we should be cautious about all the time.”
However, a female employee who opened the e-mail said she does not agree with the method of testing.
“There should be some other way to do it [reminding employees about information security],” she said. “It doesn’t feel good to be set up by my employer.”
SCENARIOS: A potential conflict with Beijing would not be similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China would target energy and food supplies, a researcher said China is likely to continue using economic and cyberoperations against Taiwan to force it to capitulate without resorting to a military attack, Fox News reported yesterday, citing the outcome of a tabletop exercise. Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) earlier this month held a tabletop exercise in Taipei focusing on Beijing’s use of economic and cybercoercion against Taiwan. The FDD mentioned an “anaconda strategy,” in which Beijing would likely use cyberwarfare and disinformation campaigns followed by a blockade or other measures to strangulate Taiwan, rather than attempting an invasion, the report said. A large-scale cyberattack would be
HSINCHU CASES: Five people among 35 who were reported being sick were still in hospital after eating at a vendor in a market in Jhubei, the local health agency said Thirty-five people have sought medical treatment for acute symptoms after allegedly eating banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) from a vendor in Jhubei City (竹北), the Hsinchu County Public Health Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said that since Saturday, it has received several reports of suspected food poisoning from hospitals. The vendor has been ordered to temporarily suspend its business, it said, adding that tests were being conducted to determine whether the people had food poisoning, with results expected in about two weeks. A preliminary investigation showed that the people who sought treatment had recently eaten banh mi at a vendor at a retail market
GOOD MODEL: Speaking at his book launch, Law said that Taiwan is the most democratic Chinese-speaking country, which is why Hong Kongers relocated here China has suffocated Hong Kong’s civil society and its next target could be Taiwan, Nathan Law (羅冠聰), cofounder of the disbanded pro-democracy Hong Kong political party Demosisto, said in Taipei yesterday. Law made the remarks at a launch in Taipei for his book When the Wind Blows — the Struggles for Freedom of Hong Kong (時代推著我們前行:羅冠聰的香港備忘錄). Law has been living in the UK since he fled Hong Kong in 2020, and the book is about his fighting for the cause of freedom in the area. He was granted political asylum in 2021. “Fleeing is a long and distressing process, but it also
IMITATING OTHERS? Tsai Ing-wen’s office said the former president rents a commercial unit for her personal office and had never used election funds to purchase real estate Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday confirmed that he used about NT$43 million (US$1.35 million) from his presidential election subsidy to purchase an office unit near the Legislative Yuan in May. Ko made the remarks after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) earlier in the day told a news conference that she received a tip-off that the TPP chairman had purchased a 48.76 ping (161.2m2) office unit at Jinan Building (濟南大樓), a commercial building in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正). Lin said that Ko purchased the unit on May 10, paying about NT$43 million in cash,