Taipei City September 13 2024: Hackers hit Taiwanese financial platforms including the stock exchange and lender Mega Financial Holding Co. on Thursday, briefly disrupting their websites in what local media described as an attack by foreign agents.
The perpetrators swamped the targeted websites with a so-called Distributed Denial of Service attack, which caused unstable connection issues for the platforms in the afternoon, according to the Ministry of Digital Affairs. During the incident, the Taiwan Stock Exchange detected web queries from overseas internet-protocol addresses at volumes several times bigger than usual, the bourse said in a separate text message to Bloomberg News.
The Digital Ministry wouldn’t comment on the origins of the assault, though local media outlet Liberty Times reported that a Russian group claimed responsibility on Telegram, citing analysis by researchers Radware.
Government websites and trading functioned normally on Friday. DDoS attacks are intended to overload systems rather than steal valuable information, and the stock exchange restored normal operations within a half-hour on Thursday. But the incident exposes the potential vulnerability of computing platforms in Taiwan, the world’s biggest producer of advanced semiconductors and a potential flashpoint in a US-China conflict.
“Regarding the unstable connections experienced by some websites yesterday afternoon, it has been confirmed that this was caused by DDoS attacks,” the Ministry of Digital Affairs said in a statement. “The Ministry will continue to monitor the situation and assist agencies in strengthening protection and response measures.”
Radware representatives didn’t respond to an email and a call to their main line in Taipei seeking comment.
Taiwan has increasingly come under cyberattack from abroad in recent years, as the island’s strategic importance grows. A hacking group believed to be linked to the Chinese government stole passwords and documents from a Taiwanese government-affiliated research center that specializes in computing, cybersecurity researchers at Cisco Systems Inc. said in August.
That attack highlighted the threat that cyberattacks pose to Taiwan, an island that’s been the source of escalating tension between the US and China. Beijing claims the island as part of its territory and has vowed to bring it under control.
