China Accuses Taiwan of Waging Cyberwarfare – Source: www.databreachtoday.com

Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks
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Fraud Management & Cybercrime
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Geo Focus: Asia

Spy Agency Says Taiwanese Defense Ministry Is Trying to Disrupt Chinese Politics

Jayant Chakravarti (@JayJay_Tech) •
September 24, 2024    

China’s Ministry of State Security has accused a Taiwanese government agency of waging cyberattacks on the mainland’s digital assets across multiple organizations and running disinformation campaigns on social media to disrupt the political system and sow social discord.

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The Chinese government’s civilian intelligence, security and secret police agency announced in a rare press release Monday that it identified three Taiwanese government officials carrying out cyberattacks on the mainland.

The Chinese agency, which for years has been accused of nurturing and directing cyberespionage attacks on Taiwan and other governments to collect information for the communist regime, accused the Taiwanese individuals of abusing cyberspace to distort public opinion, instigate confrontation and cast the country’s security defenses in a poor light.

The ministry’s allegations appear to be a tit for tat response to numerous Taiwanese accusations of China using state-backed hacker groups to gather intelligence about Taiwanese organizations, particularly those associated with the island nation’s economic policy, trade and diplomatic relations.

Security researchers reported in June that a Chinese state-sponsored group tracked as RedJuliett compromised 24 organizations in Taiwan – including an optoelectronics company, a facial recognition company, a waste and pollution treatment company, a publishing house, three universities and four software companies – between November 2023 and April 2024 (see: Chinese Hackers Caught Spying on Taiwanese Firms).

China has responded actively to cyberespionage accusations in the past, dismissing reports of connections with hacker groups. But the ruling Chinese Communist Party has rarely made accusations against other countries, with a notable exception in 2023 when the Ministry of State Security accused the U.S. of hacking Huawei’s servers over 14 years to steal critical data.

In a press release published on its official WeChat public account Monday, the ministry said the three Taiwanese nationals are employed by the Taiwan Information and Communications Army, a government agency that reports to the Ministry of National Defense and, according to Beijing, conducts information warfare and cyberwarfare for the government.

The ministry accused the three individuals of running an X account called “Anonymous 64” and using it to claim successful cyberattacks on Chinese institutions and spread disinformation targeting the Chinese political system. The group’s primary targets are Chinese organizations and web portals located in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao.

Beijing said the hackers could not inflict much damage but used social media to broadcast false information about successfully compromising Chinese government websites and portals.

The Taiwan Information and Communications Army dismissed China’s allegations Tuesday, telling local news outlets that China uses “gray zone” tactics to raise regional tensions and coordinate military and cyber operations to undermine regional peace.

“It is an attempt by China to gloss over recent accusations from the international community regarding its cyberwarfare tactics, as well as a way of undermining international support for Taiwan,” the agency told Taipei Times.

The country’s Ministry of National Defense did not respond to Information Security Media Group’s request for comment at the time of publication.