Taiwanese Opposition Leader Fears Chinese Spyware Attack

The Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) leader, Lawrence Kao, was apprehensive that the Taiwanese military could be exposing secret information by using machines manufactured in China, as reported by Taiwan News on January 13, 2009.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense purchased Chinese notebooks which could expose national secrets in case they were attacked by malicious software or spyware. According to Kao, the Chinese intelligence agencies could also embed spyware within the PCs which could be exploited to collect secret military information from Taiwanese users.

The report further stated that the military headquarters recently awarded tenders for 51 PCs to a distributor who purchased the notebooks not from Taiwanese manufacturers but from Chinese vendors.

The DPP legislator charged the military of being extremely negligent about the monitoring of its major distributors and the origin of its products. Kao also said that it is the high time for the Ministry that it should analyzes its procurement processes and the source of the equipments it is utilizing.

In fact, Kao's charges regarding the lax attitude of the security analysts are not wrong, particularly wherein Taiwan's computer security is involved. During the December 2007 visit to Beijing, spyware applications especially meant to secretly steal data from PCs and other electronic devices were found on equipments of American authorities and some other delegates of a US business delegation, which had gone to China.

According to an analysis by security experts, China would engage in an cyber war with the sole intention of paralyzing Taiwan's military communications and information networks. Since the nation is lax on this issue, the Taiwanese information and communication security network is vulnerable and can be breached by the Chinese effortlessly. This is quite simple because they (Chinese) are allegedly world-class hackers, phishers and spammers.

Moreover, since Taiwan's economic system depends heavily on computers, security analysts believe that a successful cyber attack could result in serious damage to the island economy.

Meantime, several security suppliers asserted that China topped the list for launching spam attacks and phishing scams hitting Taiwan every day.

Related article: Teenage Prosecuted For Spamming

» SPAMfighter News - 03-02-2009

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