Taiwan Foreign Trade Board Website Hacked Into

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.chinatimes.com.tw//english/eculture/89121803.htm

2000.12.19@2:03am Taiwan time updated

Taipei, Dec. 18 (CNA) The Internet website of the Republic of China's
Board of Foreign Trade (BOFT) was broken into on Sunday and Monday by
a hacker suspected of being from mainland China.

The break-in by the hacker, calling himself the "Old Cat from
Chaozhou" on the BOFT website's homepage, brought back memories of the
wave of computer hacker break-ins into official Republic of China
websites that occurred in 1999 from across the Taiwan Strait, sources
from the BOFT said.

Fortunately, a firewall -- a device that protects data from outside
intruders -- protected most of the BOFT's database from the hacker,
who was only able to replace the homepage.

Suspecting that there may have been political motives behind the
intrusion, which occurred between 6 p.m. on Sunday and 9 a.m. on
Monday, related BOFT officials and Internet experts are looking into
the case, hoping to trace back to the source of the break-in.

Although the hacker's self-proclaimed name suggested that he was from
a mainland Chinese city, BOFT officials do not rule out the
possibility that he is from Taiwan and was just having some malicious
fun.

Last year, hackers across the Taiwan Strait engaged in a series of
dog-fight style Internet battles with Taiwan authorities after the
mainland Chinese hackers broke into important ROC government agency
websites, including those of the Control Yuan, which is the top
watchdog agency in Taiwan, the National Assembly, and the Ministry of
Justice Investigation Bureau.

One "Chinese hacker" broke into the Control Yuan website on Aug. 7,
1999, claiming that "there is only one China in the world, and the
world needs only one China." The message was believed to be clearly
aimed at then-ROC President Lee Teng-hui's redefinition of the
Taipei-Beijing relationship as a "special state-to-state" one.

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