TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan has been under cyberattack from international hackers since mid-September, facing over 50 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting government agencies and private businesses, the Administration for Cyber Security said.
The attacks were significantly higher than usual in September. Numbers exceeded 50 compared to less than 5 in the previous months, per CNA.
Targets included local tax offices, regional airports, and telecom companies. While many systems were temporarily disrupted, the majority were quickly restored without significant data breaches, per CNA.
A DDoS attack is a cyberattack that aims to overload a target with excessive internet traffic, disrupting its normal operations. It is launched with networks of compromised devices connected to the internet, according to Cloudflare.
The Administration for Cyber Security coordinated with relevant agencies to address the attacks and mitigate their impact. Agencies were advised to strengthen their detection capabilities and implement defense mechanisms such as content delivery networks (CDNs), traffic scrubbing, IP blocking, and switching to static web pages.
Despite the increase in DDoS attacks, the administration’s September cybersecurity report indicated a decline in the amount of cybersecurity intelligence taken from government agencies. The total number for the month was 78,515, which was 11,995 fewer than the previous month.
Cybersecurity incidents increased by 38 in September compared to the previous month, reaching a total of 213. This represents a 2.32 times increase compared to the same period last year.
The most common cyberthreats are information gathering attacks, accounting for 41% of incidents. These attacks often employ scanning, probing, and social engineering tactics to collect data.
Intrusion attacks, making up 25% of threats, typically involve unauthorized access to systems or user privileges. Intrusion attempts, which make up 18% of cyberthreats, involve unauthorized attempts to access systems or networks.
DDoS attacks were the main reason for the increase in cybersecurity incidents, causing slow or interrupted website services at multiple agencies. These attacks accounted for 14.08% of all reported incidents in September.
