Taiwan to Host 15 Nation Cyber-security Exercise in November

A first-ever Cyber Offensive and Defensive Exercise is to be held in Taiwan in November involving 15 nations from the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Taiwanese Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai who is also head of the Cabinet department for information security, said Sunday that the exercise was planned in the wake of increasing cyber attacks targeting the Taiwan government.

The drill was first announced by American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Brent Christensen during a cybersecurity forum in Taipei on Tuesday.

According to Chen, the exercises will be similar to the Cyber Storm exercises, which are the US Department of Homeland Security’s exercises to strengthen cyber-preparedness in the public and private sectors, held every two years. The exercises were last held in the spring of last year.

Chen said the upcoming exercises in Taiwan would be divided into two parts, with the first testing the response of government staff and officials to phishing e-mails or text messages, which are the most common form of cyber attack.

The second part of the drill would examine responses in the public and private sectors to cyber attacks launched from foreign countries or locally, he said.

The Cyber Offensive and Defensive Exercises will address simulated cyber threats targeting social engineering, critical infrastructure and financial institutions, Chen said.

The teams are to be designated blue (defense) and red (attack), with Taiwan’s security team as the blue team and the 15 other countries as the red team.

The simulated attacks will attempt to hack official Taiwanese government web sites to test the capability of local cyber security teams to protect them and respond to the potential effects of such attacks, Chen said.

Taiwan is hoping that the debut cyber security drill will not only prepare the government for attacks, but also help Taiwan and other nations form a joint cyber security network, he added.