Major Taiwanese government websites were temporarily down during US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island following cyberattacks believed to be linked to China and Russia.
The websites of the presidential administration, the foreign ministries and the main English-language government internet portal Taiwan.gov.tw were attacked overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, at the time of the arrival of Ms. Pelosi to Taiwan, a visit that sparked fury in Beijing.
China regards Taiwan, a democratic and self-governing country, as an integral part of its territory. Beijing intends to retake the island one day, by force if necessary.
Beijing began Thursday the most important military maneuvers in its history around Taiwan.
The Ministry of Defense also confirmed that its website was offline for an hour overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday following a so-called DDoS attack. The latter consists of targeting a computer system by flooding it with messages or connection requests in order to cause a denial of service.
Attacks on its website and the government’s English-language portal were linked to Chinese and Russian IP addresses attempting to access websites up to 8.5 million times per minute, according to the Foreign Ministry. apparent attempt to cripple the sites.
“As cyberattacks by foreign hostile forces can always occur at any time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to remain vigilant,” spokeswoman Joanne Ou told reporters on Thursday.
The presidential administration has indicated that it will strengthen its surveillance to deal with the “hybrid information warfare waged by outside forces”.
Taipei has accused Beijing of stepping up cyberattacks since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen, who believes the island is a sovereign nation and not part of China.
Officials said Taiwan government agencies deal with around five million cyberattacks and probes a day.
In 2020, Taiwanese authorities claimed that Chinese hackers infiltrated at least 10 Taiwanese government agencies and gained access to around 6,000 email accounts to steal data.