Cyber Attacks Intensify as Taiwan Seeks to Maintain Independence from China

Cyber attacks from Beijing have intensified even as Taiwan seeks to maintain independence from China.

Hackers from China are increasingly using online platforms such as search engines and blogs to break into Taiwan’s government computers. Taiwan's governmental departments face "frequent cyber-attacks and scanning of their vulnerabilities, with the attack volume reaching 10 million a month," a source close to government discussions was quoted as saying by Reuters Tuesday.

"While the frequency of attacks by China’s cyber army has declined, the success rate of such incursions is rising. Taiwan's official departments suffer from hundreds of successful internet attacks each year, more than half of which come from assaults by China's cyber army," he said.

"They frequently go through online platforms like Google and blogs, to hide themselves and give investigators the impression it is a normal platform or tool, and thus to ignore its background actions," the source said.

The majority of attacks targeted non-core service systems, were low-level in nature, and included activities such as changing websites and tampering with information. However, there have also been more serious attacks on core systems.

The source also said the Taiwan government had evidence that some of the attacks had targeted departments and their websites by intruding into servers and stealing account passwords.