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Military hackers not charged, were testing website's safety: MND

ROC Central News Agency

02/07/2021 03:49 PM

Taipei, Feb. 7 (CNA) Prosecutors recently decided not to press charges against two military officers, who hacked into the defense ministry's website in 2017, as they had been instructed to do so to test the military's counter cyber attack capabilities, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Sunday.

In a statement, the MND's Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command said it had asked the two officers to try to hack the website, as part of a regular drill to detect loopholes in the ministry's firewall.

The statement was issued after the Chinese-language United Daily News reported in a front page story Sunday that one of the two officers had been forced to leave the military following an investigation into the 2017 breach of the MND website.

According to the newspaper, the two officers, surnamed Huang (黃) and Deng (鄧), were accused of hacking into the website of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Personnel under the MND's General Staff Headquarters.

The two officers succeeded in obtaining the passwords of then-Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) and then-Chief of the General Staff Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明), during the country's annual Han Kuang military exercises in 2017, the report said.

When it was discovered that Feng and Lee's confidential information had been obtained by hackers, the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Personnel reported the case to the Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau, not knowing that it was part of the military drill, according to the report.

In 2020, during questioning by the investigation bureau on the matter, Huang and Deng said they had hacked the website in the course of their duties, as they had been instructed to do so during a drill, the newspaper said.

The bureau later handed over the case to the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office, which decided not to press charges, as the MND said the two officers had only been carrying out their duties, according to the report.

Huang, however, later decided to file for early discharge from the military, it said.

(By Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh)

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