Attacks on Taiwan Websites Likely Work of Chinese 'Hacktivists'

Digital attacks against Taiwanese government websites ahead of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Tapei on Tuesday were likely launched by Chinese activist hackers rather than the Chinese government, a cybersecurity research organisation said. From a report: 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 temporarily taken offline on Tuesday. In a statement, the foreign ministry said both websites had been hit with up to 8.5 million traffic requests a minute from a "large number of IPs from China, Russia and other places."

More likely

[wakeboarder]

Government 'Hacktivists'

Re: More likely

[Grokew]

Sounds more like something done by our own side, to use it as an excuse for future attacks. I'm tired of all the dirty tricks.

Re:

[Bert64]

Exactly, countries like china severely punish those who are caught hacking domestic systems but turn a blind eye if they hack foreign targets. So it's likely that any chinese group would be using compromised foreign machines to launch their attacks not only to hide their true location but also to avoid the risk to themselves.

Re:

[wakeboarder]

Are you kidding? Chinese government actively supports the hacking of US companies and steals our IP on regular basis why wouldn't they act Taiwan also?

Call it what it IS.

[kaizendojo]

State sponsored terrorism. It's not activism in any way shape or form. No one called it 'hacktivism' when the Russians were doing it in Ukraine.

Re:

[XXongo]

State sponsored terrorism.

Not necessarily state sponsored, China has script-kiddies too. They know that they'd get found and hammered down if they DDoS'ed Chinese websites, but vandals gotta vandalize, and they know nobody official will disapprove if they hit Taiwan sites.

Re:

[spitzak]

I think the whole point of this article (whether it is correct or not) is that the hackers are *not* state sponsored.

Hmm ...

[fahrbot-bot]

If China's government actually believes Taiwan is still a part of China (a breakaway province) and they're okay with theses attacks, then they're okay with, basically, attacking themselves. Alternatively, China actually believes Taiwan is a separate country/government and that it's okay to attack another country.

Re:

[XXongo]

What if they believe that Taiwan is a province of China, but the Taiwan government is illegitimate?

Attacking Taiwan government websites is not "attacking themselves".

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Taiwan and China are basically in a civil war that never ended. Just as the north never recognized the south's independence in the US civil war, nor did basically any other country around the world.

Re:

[gtall]

No they aren't in a civil war, they are in a one sided war where the CCP and their reigning tyrant have their knickers in a twist over the thought there is a country with free Chinese governing themselves instead of providing blood for the CCP leeches.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because there's a long detente, doesn't necessarily mean they aren't in a civil war. Taiwan's constitution states that they represent free China, and all of mainland China is currently occupied. Taiwan was still once in awhile bombing parts of China up until 90s. There's been many times in Chinese history where basically China was split into multiple parts, with each government stating they were legitimate while the others not. They even had trading relationships with each other. The famous Three

Re:

[phantomfive]

Taiwan was still once in awhile bombing parts of China up until 90s.

I can't find the bombing you are referring to. This is the closest I can come up with [wikipedia.org]. There was some bombing of [atlasobscura.com] Kinmen [atlasobscura.com], but that ended in the 70s.

not the Chinese government?

[p51d007]

99.9% of the "people" in China don't do anything unless the government gives them the authority. So, if someone has internet access OUTSIDE of China, you can bet the government granted them the access, which means the CCP is responsible, per se.

Attacks on T*an

[Catvid-22]

For a moment, I thought this was about that anime series [wikipedia.org] I watched some years back.

Oh bullshit.

[Eunomion]

Unless they ever attack the CCP or are prosecuted by it, which I highly doubt, those responsible are state-aligned (if not state-sponsored) and therefore not "hacktivists" in any meaningful sense.

The CCP could do much worse, of course, but it would not be out of character to unleash a disorganized response if the goal were symbolic rather than practical.

Re: China is a bunch of fucking retards

[Grokew]

Whe you are growing up, you imitate in order to learn. You must do things the way others do before you acquire the knowledge necessary to do things your own way. China has a long history, but just recently modernized it's infrastructure and industrial capabilites. Also remember that most of our greatest innovators, curiously worked at the USPTO and mostly stole other people's inventions and passed them as their own, and when they couldn't, they would use lawsuits and litigation to stall or bankrupt the actu