The Taiwanese National Security Bureau has discovered that cyber attacks on the island’s government divisions doubled in 2024 to a daily average of 2.4 million a day.
It seems that most of these attacks originated from Chinese cyber forces, alleges the official report.
“People's Republic of China (PRC) cyber force has repeatedly cracked into the cyberspace belonging to the Republic of China (Taiwan) to steal data and conduct intrusions,” reads the statement by Taiwan’s National Security Bureau.
The official statement added that the PRC cyber force’s techniques have become increasingly sophisticated.
This comes at a time when Beijing is revving up its military power and has already been trying to subjugate political pressure on Taiwan to abandon its democratic system, instead, acknowledge China's sovereignty claim.
The island has been voicing afflictions China has been putting them through with daily military drills and balloons around ROC. Taiwan calls it the “grey-zone harassment.”
Cyber Attacks Attributed to Chinese Cyber Force
“Most of the attacks are attributed to the PRC cyber force,” stated the National Security Bureau of the island. “Although many of those attacks have been effectively detected and blocked, the growing numbers of attacks pinpoint the increasingly severe nature of China’s hacking activities.”
ROC’s intelligence reports from 2024 claim that a total of 906 cyber attack cases were lodged against Taiwan’s government agencies and private sector. This is a 20% increase from 752 cases in 2023.
Among all the cases confirmed, nearly 80% of the attacks were against government departments in Taiwan.
ROC’s security division analysed the cyber attack targets of China’s cyber force and found that they were attacking the communications field, especially the telecommunications industry, which has grown by 650%.
Additionally, the PRC has been targeting the transportation sector and defence supply chains which seem to have risen by 70% and 57%, respectively.
“Attacks in these three fields have the most significant growth rates, showing that they are the key areas of China’s chosen targets of cyberattacks,” noted Taiwan’s National Security Bureau.
Also Read: Ministry of Defence Data Exposed in China-Linked Cyber Attack
Targeting Taiwanese Government Departments
What is known so far is that the Netcom device vulnerabilities are targeted which are often used by Taiwanese government agencies. Cyber attacks involve setting up ambushes and stealing confidential information.
Officials say that the PRC cyber force has been using techniques like Living off-the-land, to escape detection by network defence systems. China targets Taiwanese civil servants’ emails and launches cyberattacks, such as social engineering, attempting to steal confidential information.
“In addition, the PRC cyber force has employed diverse techniques to infiltrate and steal data from Taiwan’s defence supply chain and ISPs,” the agency added.
The cyber attacks involve “advanced persistent threats, phishing emails, as well as the use of zero-day vulnerabilities, Trojans, and backdoors.”
These attacks are aimed at infiltrating and compromising Taiwan’s CI systems, such as those for highways and ports, and to disrupt Taiwan’s order of transportation and logistics.
That’s not all, the PRC allegedly also carried out DDoS attacks on Taiwan’s transportation and financial divisions when the PLA conducted military drills against Taiwan, intending to intensify the harassment effect and military intimidation.
“The PRC cyber force steals personal data of Taiwanese nationals and sells those data on the dark web and hacker forums,” the report expressed.
“Such moves aim to reap profits through the techniques of Hack & Leak. Moreover, they voice criticism of Taiwan’s inability in cybersecurity on social media forums to undermine the prestige and credibility of the Taiwanese government.”
Also Read: Chinese Espionage Hackers Allegedly Stole Sensitive Data From Fortinet
