Taiwan Website Attacks Likely Caused by Chinese 'Hacktivists', Researchers Say

Taiwan's presidential office website was targeted by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and was malfunctioning on Tuesday.

Taiwan Website Attacks Likely Caused by Chinese 'Hacktivists', Researchers Say

Photo Credit: Pexels/Sora Shimazaki

DDoS attacks direct high volumes of internet traffic towards a target server in a bid to knock it offline

Highlights
  • Taiwan's government websites suffered DDoS attacks on Tuesday
  • The attacks are believed to be the work of Chinese hacker activists
  • Taiwan's presedential website and a foreign ministry website were down
Advertisement

Digital attacks against Taiwanese government websites ahead of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Taipei on Tuesday were likely launched by Chinese activist hackers, or "hacktivists," a cybersecurity research organisation said. The website of Taiwan's presidential office was targeted by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Tuesday and was at one point malfunctioning, the office said in a statement.

Access to the website was restored within about 20 minutes of the attack, the statement said. Taiwanese government agencies were monitoring the situation in the face of "information warfare," a spokesperson later added.

A government portal website and Taiwan's foreign ministry website were also taken offline and appeared inaccessible late on Tuesday. The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DDoS attacks work by directing high volumes of internet traffic towards targeted servers in a relatively unsophisticated bid to knock them offline.

"These are uncoordinated, random, moral-less attacks against websites that Chinese hacktivists use to get their message across," said Johannes Ullrich, Dean of Research at the SANS Technology Institute, a cybersecurity education and research organisation.

"Usually it continues for a few days, but they often lose interest within a week. Many of the attacks are motivated by what is written in the Chinese press," Ullrich added.

The disruptive digital blitz came from hundreds of thousands of IP addresses, tied to devices registered within Chinese commercial internet space, Ullrich said.

A similar cohort of Chinese IP addresses had been scanning the internet for low level, easily exploitable vulnerabilities since Friday, he added, and did not match the usual activity carried out by Chinese government hackers.

© Thomson Reuters 2022


Is Pixel 6a the best camera phone under Rs. 50,000? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.
Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

OnePlus 10T 5G Global Launch Today: How to Watch Livestream, Expected Specifications
ED Probing WazirX in 2 Cases, Transactions With Binance 'Cloaked in Mystery', Says MoS Finance
Share on Facebook Gadgets360 Twitter Share Tweet Snapchat Share Reddit Comment google-newsGoogle News
 
 

Advertisement

Follow Us

Advertisement

© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Trending Products »
Latest Tech News »