Source: Global Times
[Global Times Special Correspondent Chen Lifei] Taiwan authorities' website has been frequently attacked in recent days. The DPP took advantage of the situation to point the finger at the mainland, and the "ban on mainland products" was further expanded. This move has caused controversy on the island.
talk about mainland products
According to Taiwan's United Daily News on the 7th, Shen Rongjin, deputy head of Taiwan's administrative agency, announced at a recent financial security meeting that the scope of banning mainland communication products will be expanded from the past ban on government agencies, outsourced manufacturers and subcontracting manufacturers to "in public agencies and fields", which are not available, including the fields being rented to shopping malls, parking lots, etc. On the 6th, Taiwan's administrative agencies began a comprehensive inventory. Since existing contracts and budgets were involved, various agencies did not rule out renegotiation.
ban is related to US House Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. On August 3, the billboard of the Taiwan Railway New Zuoying Station was blacked out, and words such as "The old witch visited Taiwan" and "The great China will eventually be unified" appeared on the screen wall. Taiwan Railways explained that after investigation, the screen wall of Zuoying Station was set up by an advertising company. The company does use mainland software, but it is connected to the external network and has not been connected to the Taiwan Railway Bureau official network. But Chen Yaoxiang, head of Taiwan's communications department, said that this is because the advertising media system uses mainland software. He incited that if companies use mainland software in their systems, they should be careful of being hacked at critical moments. Taiwan's administrative agencies have even come out and Taiwan Railways must be held accountable.
In fact, as early as December 2020, the administrative agency in Taiwan issued a circular on all agencies across Taiwan, clearly stipulating that official communication equipment should not use mainland brands, etc., and then asked all agencies to take stock of outsourced manufacturers and outsourcing manufacturers if they use mainland communication products, they must be replaced by the end of 2021; as for products whose contract has not yet expired and does not need to be scrapped, they will be discontinued first. The scope of the ban includes smartphones, Netcom information and drones. Since the proportion of UAVs used by the agencies on the island is the highest produced by Shenzhen DJI Company, after the ban was released, many agencies find it difficult to buy models of the same quality at the same price, making departments such as agriculture, environmental protection and transportation authorities with a large number of air shooting demands become "severely affected areas." The screen that the Taiwan Railway was hacked this month belongs to the advertising playback TV wall rented by the Taiwan Railway Asset Development Center to the mall, and is within the scope of leasing.
Many agencies were surprised by the new measures
The ban was expanded in response to the authorities, and various counties and cities responded differently. Taichung City said that it has not received any regulations from the administrative authority, and if there is such regulations, it will be clearly stated when signing a contract with the manufacturer in the future. Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Luo Dasheng asked that now it has become globalized, "mainland products" are all made in the mainland, and it is still made by mainland enterprises, so it must be clarified first. The New Taipei City Information Center stated that no mainland products were found in the rental venues in the past. Some people familiar with procurement said that the "sneak attack" of information billboards is actually the result of half of the budget. In the past, such billboards must have required the installation of their own networks and servers, but now the price is cut in half. If the hardware is only required to not use mainland products, it is easy to check. If the outsourcing manufacturer uses mainland products to save budget, the software uses mainland products, and it is almost impossible to check.
Many agencies were surprised by the new measures and believed that other agencies in the authorities had problems this time. Was it also been hacked because of mainland products? According to Taiwan's China Times on the 6th, the Taiwan Foreign Affairs Department claimed that the official website and the authorities' English portal network detected a large number of online IP attacks from mainland China and Russia on the 2nd, with the intention of paralyzing the operation of the website, reaching 8.5 million times in a minute; at noon, late at night, and early morning on the 5th, overseas cyber troops were successively detected to carry out a large number of attacks using update methods, and the maximum number of malicious online connections has reached 170 million times per minute. According to statistics from the Taiwan authorities, overseas cyber attacks have reached their peak recently on the 2nd, with a single-day attack volume of 23 times the usual maximum attack volume. The focus of the attack on the 4th and 5th began to lock in the official website of the specific department, and this wave of attack forms mainly cause network congestion.
was criticized for "cognitive combat"
KMT "legislator" Hong Mengkai said that the authorities invested a lot of budgets in credit security every year but failed to achieve results. This time, "it was broken is a fact."Taiwanese media mocked that the attack on the authorities' website this time was a common international method, and the technical content was not high. Unexpectedly, the Tsai administration, who spared no effort to slap "fake information" and emphasized "investment security" all day long, was helpless. The DPP "the protection ability of the investment security is just like this CCP military exercise. The people still have to publish information from Japan to know that the missile flew overhead."
The United Daily News asked on the 7th that when Tsai Ing-wen’s office and foreign affairs departments were both hacked, was it also mainland products that were causing trouble? It can only be said that this exposes the weakness of security protection on the island. The authorities only target mainland products, which may only be a headache in diverting the focus. United News Network said that the authorities are deliberately confusing the public. Taiwan Railway LED billboards may use mainland products, and the NCC calls mainland software refers to the LED driver, that is, the program that allows LEDs to play their display functions. In the metaphor of the human body, the driver only allows your feet to move, but where to go, it depends on the host operating system of the brain. What was hacked this time was not the hands and feet, but the system's host, that is, the brain. What has this to do with hands and feet? The article said that in the past, the Tsai administration completely banned mainland communication products and pushed all security issues to the other side. However, after this hacker attacked the authorities' websites in large numbers, the outside world suddenly discovered that the Tsai administration's security protection was so vulnerable. In order to divert the focus, the DPP brought the wind direction to the unlucky Taiwan Railway flag because of the use of mainland software. "The Tsai government has been saying that cognitive combat on the other side of the strait, but in fact it is really the master of cognitive combat."
