The Executive Yuan’s Department of Cybersecurity last month detected 99,293 cybersecurity threats involving the government’s backbone networks, or the highest number of monthly incidents in nearly two years, according to the department’s monthly cybersecurity bulletin.
The report said that 40 percent of the incidents have yet to be investigated, while 23 percent were confirmed cyberattacks and 18 percent were probes.
While the amount of cyberattacks and probes falls within expectations, the large number of unidentified incidents is cause for concern, department Director-General Jyan Hong-wei (簡宏偉) said yesterday.
Photo: CNA
“In some cases, a judgement cannot be made immediately following an incident report,” he said.
“These incidents have to be matched against the tracking database, while further analysis and investigation could take time, ranging from many months to a year,” he said.
“We have to understand what they are: whether they are a novel form of attack or whether they foreshadow a large-scale attack,” he added.
Fifty-two of last month’s incidents were reported while the incident was happening, and the majority of those were detected by information technology centers, the report said.
Among these incidents, 53.8 percent involved malware, denial of service attacks and insertion of cryptocurrency mining software, the report added.
Notably, a state apparatus listed is category A regarding cybersecurity responsibility suffered a breach of its noncore operating system in the form of Domain Name System tunneling, the report said.
It is believed that a hacker used a Structured Query Language injection technique to attack a platform for renting public venues and obtained system administrator privileges, the report said.
The affected server was removed from the network and its data was backed up for outside security firms to examine, it said.
“This incident illustrates the point that hackers might target noncore operating systems for attack,” the report said.
“This really should not have happened,” Jyan said. “Although most apparatuses are focused on securing core operating systems, the department remains highly concerned with the noncore systems that could become gaps in our defense.”
“The monthly report is a reminder to government agencies that all systems need to be tested for weaknesses and their vulnerabilities patched,” Jyan added.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS