- Taiwan faces 2.8 million daily cyber intrusions, mostly attributed to Chinese threat actors
- China allegedly spreads pro-Beijing misinformation via 10,000 troll accounts and 1.5 million fake posts
- Groups like APT41 and Volt Typhoon target critical sectors; China denies all cyberattack allegations
China’s cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns against Taiwan are escalating, as the Red Dragon looks to degrade public trust against the government ahead of the Taiwanese 2026 local elections.
This is according to the Taiwanese National Security Bureau (NSB), who recently presented a new security report in front of the country’s parliament, The Record reported. As per the NSB, whose findings were cited by the local media, government networks faced an average of 2.8 million intrusions every day this year, up 17% compared to the year prior.
Besides intrusions, China is also engaged in a major misinformation campaign, which includes an “online troll army” that spreads fake news via social media and online forums.
Fake news
The majority of these intrusions were attributed to the country’s aggressive western neighbor, who allegedly targeted critical infrastructure organizations, such as defense, telecommunications, energy, and medical institutions.
“Beyond intelligence theft, these operations integrate dark web, internet forum, and media channels to disseminate fabricated content,” the NSB wrote in its report.
So far, NSB found more than 10,000 social media accounts used for this purpose, who distributed more than 1.5 million fake news posts. Many promote a pro-China stance and lie about things like tariff negotiations with the US and different domestic policies.
For years, China has been one of the most active threat actors among western government organizations, next to Iran, North Korea, and Russia. Its groups, such as Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, APT41, and many others, were spotted numerous times compromising telecommunications firms[1], healthcare, software, and other organizations, with malware[2].
Their goals vary from cyber-espionage to disruption, but China has always denied all involvements and any allegations. Instead, it dubbed the US “the world’s biggest cyber-bully” and even accused the NSA of orchestrating numerous attacks against its own critical infrastructure organizations.
Via The Record[3]
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References
- ^ compromising telecommunications firms (www.techradar.com)
- ^ malware (www.techradar.com)
- ^ The Record (therecord.media)
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