Taiwan organising cyber war drill

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=7663693

AFP [MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2002  3:13:10 PM]

TAIPEI: Taiwan is planning a drill to boost the island's Internet
defence against any hacker attacks, especially from China, an official
said Monday.

The exercise will be held in June coupled with the annual "Wan An"  
drill, which for decades had served only as a platform to review the
island's air-raid defense capability.

"The general public, rather than the military and policemen, should be
responsible for the safeguarding of national defense and social
order," says Fang Hung-chun, an official with the cabinet-level
Science and Technology Advisory Group.

Taiwan's government websites have become a target for Chinese hackers
whenever tensions across the Taiwan Strait have flared up.

At one moment, Chinese hackers succeeded in attacking several
government websites after Chen Shui-bian from the pro-independence
Democratic Progressive Party was sworn in on May 20.

The coming cyber war exercise, to be held on a trial basis, will be
presided over by Premier Yu Shyi-kun.

"Through the drill, we would be able to better understand how hackers
could hack into the official websites and accordingly we could come up
with countermeasures," Fang said.

Many institutions felt their websites are safe after they set up
firewalls or anti-virus software, he warned.

In the drill, the responsible units will also respond to a scenario,
under which telecommunications optical-fibers linking the northern and
southern parts of the island are interrupted.

The advisory group in March last year set up a task force to detect
any possible loopholes of the official websites.

Taiwan's defence ministry also has established a special unit on the
front after Tang Yao-ming, then chief of the General Staff, warned in
1999 that China may launch a cyber war, including the use of computer
viruses to paralyse command systems, before any invasion of Taiwan.

Local newspapers reported the People's Liberation Army had simulated
computer virus offensives in exercises in Shenyang, Beijing and
Nanjing over the past few years.



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