Cyber attacks on Taiwan: China caught in its own tangle
India Today
Hackers believed to be from China targeted various Taiwan government websites ahead of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island.
Amid rising tension between China and Taiwan, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit on Tuesday fueled Chinese aggression. Before Pelosi’s visit, Taiwan’s government websites faced DDoS (Distributed Denial of Secrets) attack by hackers believed to be from China. During a DDoS attack, huge internet traffic is sent to the target server to stop the service.
Taiwan Presidential Palace spokesperson Chang Tun-Han acknowledged this and said in a Facebook post that the official website of the Presidential Palace was attacked by an overseas DDoS attack, and the attack traffic was 200 times that of normal traffic.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said that websites had been hit with up to 8.5 million traffic requests a minute from a "large number of IPs from China, Russia and other places, according to Reuters.
“Before Pelosi arrived, electronic bulletin boards in the Taiwan Railways Administration’s Sinzuoying Station and in some 7-Eleven convenience stores were hacked as well, showing messages in simplified Chinese characters asking Pelosi to leave Taiwan,” reported by Taipei Times.
The report further stated, “National Communications Commission Chairman Chen Yaw-shyang () on Wednesday told a news conference at the Executive Yuan that the bulletin boards in the convenience stores were easily hacked because they use Chinese software, which could contain Trojan malware and make them targets of cyberattacks.”
READ | Decoding Chinese chatter on Pelosi’s Taiwan visit
