Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, the island’s main intelligence agency, announced on January 6 that it had recorded an average of 2.4 million cyberattacks per day in its cyberspace, with the aim of “steal data and carry out intrusions”. A figure twice as high as in 2023.
Telecoms on the front line
Most of these attacks were detected and blocked. Taiwan’s national intelligence community counted 906 cyberattacks against the government and private sector attributed to actors linked to the Chinese state, up 20% from the previous year. Chinese cyber forces have mainly targeted the telecoms sector, up 650% compared to 2023. Among the key targets of malicious actors linked to the Beijing regime also include transport (+70%) and supply chain activities in the middle of defense (+57%).
In terms of the techniques used, Taiwanese intelligence observes that numerous attacks were launched at the same time as military operations on the island. Some of these took the form of denial of service (DDoS) attacks, with the aim of making the web pages of financial and transport institutions inaccessible. The National Security Bureau also notes that the Chinese state is targeting vulnerabilities in Netcom devices used by the government to then steal data.
China seeks to disrupt critical infrastructure
The report also mentions social engineering campaigns, particularly aimed at civil servants, in order to steal data. Chinese cyberattackers have finally used Trojan horse and backdoor attacks to compromise certain infrastructure on the island, in particular the information systems of highways and airports. By the time of Taiwan’s presidential elections in January 2024, the number of cyberattacks had exploded to an average of 6 million per day.
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