The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has introduced five measures to enhance information security at its overseas missions following concerns highlighted in audits, it said in a recent report to the Legislative Yuan.
Reviews carried out last year by the National Audit Office found that 33 of the country’s 109 foreign missions used equipment or services that failed information-security tests.
Officials at overseas missions had been using Chinese social media software to collect information from Taiwanese living overseas, which was installed on government-issued cellphones, the ministry said.
Photo: Reuters
Telecommunications services at 17 missions were found to be using equipment provided by China, the report said.
As China has a monopoly over the local supply of telecommunications equipment in those countries, replacement of the equipment would be difficult, it said.
The ministry said it has set up controls over information flows at missions where concerns are the greatest, and had reported those issues to the Ministry of Digital Affairs for review.
Access to government networks from cellphones used by officials at those 17 missions would be prohibited, and information security at the missions would be bolstered and closely monitored, the MOFA said.
“We will also conduct comprehensive endpoint deployments to monitor and intercept suspicious programs lurking in communications equipment at our foreign missions,” it said.
Going forward, information-security audits would be two-tiered, with a first-level audit done by an official at each mission, while a second-level review would be performed by a regional official, it said.
An interministerial team would also visit missions annually to conduct inspections and training, it added.
In the previous legislative session, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that in 2019, only nine overseas missions self-audited their information security systems, and in 2022 that number dropped to four, while 10 missions at that time had not conducted self-audits in four or more years.
The ministry said in the report that in 2022 it prioritized some missions for immediate audits, and last year conducted more audits at 11 key missions across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
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