Page 10 - The Indian EYE 093022

OPINION SEPTEMBER 30, 2022 | The Indian Eye 10

Chinese Targeted Cyber Operations against Taiwan:

What are Key Takeaways for India

China has also been blamed for cyberattacks on multiple Indian critical infrastructure like the 2021 attack on
India’s power and telecommunication infrastructure, hacking attempt on India’s vaccine makers, Bharat Biotech
and Serum Institute of India, and the 2022 power grid incident in Ladakh

KRUTIKA PATIL

nited States House of Repre-
sentatives Speaker, Nancy Pe-
Ulosi’s visit to Taiwan in August
2022 led to a slew of threatening acts
by China, including military exercises
near Taiwan, and targeted cyber oper-
ations.
The primary objective of these cy-
berattacks was to disrupt or interfere in
order to weaken the confidence of the
government and create chaos. These sites and disinformation operations designs from Taiwanese semiconduc- Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Office,
cyber operations can be categorized need considerable intelligence input tor companies. a government body that deals with
into three types—low impact Dis- that are most likely possible through In February 2022, Fujimi Inc., China, also puts out urgent statements
tributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) these cyber espionage campaigns. a Japanese manufacturer of semi- to curb the spread of disinformation
attacks and data leaks; cyber-enabled Based on data relating to conductor-related products, and its that has the potential to induce panic.
disinformation operations; and cyber state-sponsored cyber activity re- Taiwan subsidiary, experienced unau- Taiwan’s efforts to curtail cyber-en-
espionage. The Office of the Presi- search,7 there were 13 cyber opera- thorized server access, which was later abled disinformation campaigns are
dent, Foreign Ministry, Defense Min- tions between China and Taiwan, of confirmed to be a malicious attack. taken very seriously by government
istry, and Taoyuan International Air- which 12 originated from China. In- Since Taiwan Semiconductor officials. According to Taiwan’s Inves-
port websites suffered DDoS attacks. terestingly, eight of these operations Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) tigative Bureau, government investi-
Various Taiwanese organizations and (or 79 per cent of the total) were cy- supplies more than 90 per cent of the gators have proved around 900 cases
citizens experienced data breaches ber espionage operations while the global supply of the most advanced of disinformation since 2019 and have
where their data was leaked online, remaining four were disruptive in na- category of mass-produced semicon- filed prosecutions in 200 of these in-
allegedly by the Chinese. Taiwanese ture which did not cause much physi- ductors, cyberattacks on TSMC could cidents. However, the Investigative
officials have attributed these attacks cal damage. be detrimental to the electronic needs Bureau has also stated that since the
to the Chinese government. The flurry of cyber activities in of the entire world and is one of the past two years, Chinese information
While DDoS attacks and data Taiwanese cyberspace and Taiwan’s reasons why Taiwan has an aggressive operations have gotten increasingly
leaks did not lead to much destruc- successful cyber defense methods cyber defensive strategy, made up of sophisticated as most operations are
tion, China mounted a significant have gained considerable attention countering disinformation and pro- hidden under many layers of “posting
cyber-enabled disinformation cam- from security researchers. Taiwan’s tecting critical infrastructure. and reposting on social media that are
paign. According to Taiwanese mili- cyber defense has mainly aimed at Taiwan’s model of countering dis- difficult to peel back or counter”.
tary officials, Chinese disinformation countering Chinese cyber-enabled information is based on protection of Chinese cyber threat actors have
campaigns are “cognitive operations” disinformation campaigns and de- freedom of expression while still pro- a long history of attacking govern-
aimed to harm the government’s rep- fending its networks and systems in- tecting its citizens from disinforma- ment organizations, critical infra-
utation, undermine military and civil- frastructure. In addition, successful tion in the time of crisis, as witnessed structure, private sector, and human
ian morale, and instil fear that China cyberattack on Taiwanese semicon- in the recent events. Taiwan has been rights activists in India. Since 2008,
would invade Taiwan. There were ductor manufacturers would repre- consistently ranked as the world’s big- China has been accused of attempting
several instances of said disinforma- sent an attack on the tech industry and gest target for foreign disinformation to hack government organizations like
tion campaign on Taiwanese social might disrupt the supply chain around campaigns for nine years in a row. Ac- the Ministry of External Affairs and
media platforms following Pelosi’s the globe because Taiwan controls cording to Taiwanese military officials, National Information Centre (2008),
announcement that she was coming more than 60 per cent of the world’s following Pelosi’s visit, 270 instances Prime Minister’s Office (2010), De-
to Taiwan. semiconductor manufacturing. of fake or misleading information fense Research and Development
According to researchers, there Taiwan’s semiconductor man- were identified by them. Organization (2013), and Air India
was a lot of fake information on Chi- ufacturers have been targeted by However, Taiwan has a very ro- (2021, before privatization).
na’s Weibo, some of which made its way China’s state-sponsored hackers for bust defense mechanism against disin- China has also been blamed for
onto Taiwanese social media platforms years. In 2020, a series of deep intru- formation campaigns which includes a cyberattacks on multiple Indian criti-
like Line and Facebook and spread sions known as Operation Skeleton community of non-profit fact-check- cal infrastructure like the 2021 attack
rapidly on English language Twitter. Key was discovered with the goal of ing groups that act as the first line of on India’s power and telecommunica-
All of these incidents indicate the exis- stealing as much intellectual proper- defense that utilize artificial intelli- tion infrastructure, hacking attempt
tence of elaborate Chinese cyber espio- ty as possible, including source code, gence (AI) enabled fact-checking bots on India’s vaccine makers, Bharat
nage campaigns because hacking web- software development kits, and chip to crack down on fake news. Continued at next page... >>

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