- The website of Taiwan’s presidential office, the foreign ministry, and the main government English portal as well as the biggest shop branches was under an overseas cyber-attack as a response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit.
- Taiwan’s government has not directly blamed the Chinese government for the cyber attacks, but they said that the attacks on government websites originated from addresses in China and Russia.
- Taiwan produces computer chips that have become vital to U.S. national security. Nancy Pelosi met executives from the semiconductor chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC).
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a brief visit to Taiwan last week. Before and during her visit, Taiwanese government websites were hit by massive cyberattacks. The attacks were claimed to have connections with China and Russia.
China recognizes Taiwan as its territory
The website of Taiwan’s presidential office, the foreign ministry, and the main government English portal was under an overseas cyber-attack and at one point they were breakdown. In some branches of the biggest shops in Taiwan, the television screens behind cashiers suddenly changed to show the words: “Warmonger Pelosi, get out of Taiwan!”. And all these cyber attacks happened before or during Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week.
Pelosi’s visit caused furious responses from the Chinese government as well as from its public. China recognizes Taiwan as its territory and Pelosi’s visit violated its sovereignty on the island. Taiwan’s foreign ministry stated that the attacks had links to Chinese and Russian IP addresses and they tried to access the domains up to 8.5 million times per minute.
Taiwanese officials have not directly blamed the attacks on the Chinese government, but they stated that the attacks on government websites originated from addresses in China and Russia. The officials also added that the branches of the shops whose displays were changed had used Chinese software. They believe that the software that was being used in the shop displays could have contained backdoors or trojan horse malware.
Lo Ping-cheng, a government spokesman, said that the officials increased security at key departments such as power plants and airports and accelerated the cyber security caution level across government offices. So far no damages have been detected. The cabinet spokesman said;
« Government departments have been very careful. In these past few days, in terms of public security, we have set up three-tier government security and communication mechanism, it is already tough and defensive enough so these adaptations have been beneficial. »
Taiwan produces chips that are vital for the U.S
Taiwan produces computer chips that have become vital to U.S. national security. During her visit, Nancy Pelosi met some executives from the semiconductor chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The meeting came just days after Congress passed the Chips and Science Act, which provides $52 billion in subsidies to incentivize chip manufacturers to build factories in the United States.
Taiwan has also blamed China for operating cyber attacks on the island since the 2016 election of president Tsai Ing-wen. The officials say that in 2020 Chinese hackers had hit at least 10 government agencies and obtained access to thousands of email accounts to steal data. Nancy Pelosi’s 24-hour visit is over but aftershocks are continuing.