Taiwan circles wagons in cyber-warfare
from CHINA NEWS, 17 August 1999A senior Ministry of National Defense official said yesterday that Taiwan is capable of defending itself from an information technology attack by China, but will not itself provoke a cyber war.
The ministry has also set up a special task force to oversee the island's information warfare strategy, said Lin Ching-ching, the director of the ministry's Electronic Communications and Information Bureau.
"China has put a lot of effort into building up its information capabilities in the past decade," Lin said. He added that Beijing has conducted a few military exercises to test its information warfare development. "But Taiwan is also working on it. We are not as fragile as many people think," he said.
A power outage that plunged four-fifths of the island into darkness on July 29 intensified Taiwanese people's fear of a Chinese military attack. But while those fears have gone unrealized, cross-strait tensions continued to rise in early August as hackers from both sides of the strait broke into each other's government websites to post provocative slogans and national flags.
The Internet battle also raised public questions as to whether Taiwan has the capability to handle what will be a future trend-information warfare which is widely viewed as a major challenge to the island's information technology.
Lin allayed such concerns, saying that Taiwan has the ability to counter China's information attack and has set up a military information warfare strategic policy committee as the highest decision-making body on the issue.
Lin said that none of the island's computer systems broke down during the blackout. Generally, man-made mistakes cause 70 percent of computer breakdowns on the island, he said.
"We have realized that killing viruses is not our top priority and a crisis-solving center should be established," he said.
But because Taiwan has a limited national defense budget, everything must be cost-effective, said Lin.
According to Webster Chiang, the vice chairman of the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, the maintenance and development of information protection systems accounts for only one percent of the national budget.
Chang Kwang-yuan, director of the information division at the National Security Bureau, said the bureau had tracked down 165 websites as the sources of hacking by mainland Chinese on August 7. He said the some of the websites were found to be government-operated but declined to identify whether the intrusions were orchestrated by the Chinese government or individual hackers.
Tang Yao-chung, an information science professor at National Taiwan University, suggested that the government devote more effort to the development of Taiwan's offensive computer warfare capabilities.
"Developing coding abilities is a profitable business and should be done by private companies," said Tang. "But decoding and building offensive strategies are the government's responsibilities."
Lin said he does not encourage provoking China by Internet hacking, but said Taiwan is capable of standing firmly.
"On a legal basis, we don't encourage taking the offensive, although we do have the ability to handle any offensive aggression by China," said Lin.
The cross-strait cyber war is likely to continue as more websites from both sides are hacked. While Taiwan is focusing on more military purchases, the incident provided a chance for Taiwan to re-examine its information security.Copyright 1999 China News
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