China’s Shifting Cyber Focus on Taiwan

A communications officer during Han Kuang 29

A new report by Taiwan’s spy agency claims that the PLA has shifted its cyber warfare priorities to the civilian sector 

Hackers from the Chinese military appear to have shifted the focus of their attacks against Taiwan from government institutions to the civilian sector, including think tanks, telecommunications, Internet nodes, and traffic signal control systems, the island’s top civilian spy agency said in a new report. 

The report, submitted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) to the Legislative Yuan prior to a briefing on countermeasures on April 29, did not venture reasons why the PLA’s General Staff Department was now turning its sights on civilian infrastructure, nor did it indicate whether this alleged shift was part of a larger trend or was specific to Taiwan. 

Rather than focus on government facilities and diplomatic missions abroad, think tanks, firms in the information technology sector or outsourced factories and businesses, network nodes — primarily industrial computers that are not protected by firewalls or invasion detection systems — broadband routers, factory-grade microcomputer controllers, cloud storage and traffic signal switches, were identified as the probable principal targets of Chinese hackers. 

My article, published today in The Diplomat, continues here.