Mainland China accuses Taiwan of backing cyberattacks on 1,000 sensitive targets

Mainland Chinese authorities have accused a hacker group they allege is backed by Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of orchestrating cyberattacks on up to 1,000 sensitive mainland networks, including military, energy and government systems.

The claim was made public on Monday by the Guangzhou city police, who said the group used “rudimentary and crude” methods to launch widespread attacks from overseas IP addresses, including from the United States, France and Japan.

The city’s Tianhe district Public Security Bureau said the group was behind a recent incident in which a local tech company was targeted in Guangzhou, in the southern province of Guangdong. The bureau said technical analysis traced the attack to the alleged Taiwan-based group, according to Xinhua on Tuesday.

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“The hackers deployed phishing emails, exploited public vulnerabilities, conducted brute-force password attacks and used low-grade Trojan horse programs to carry out the attacks,” the police said.

Police also said the group had ramped up its activity significantly over the past year, describing its actions as “malicious sabotage” aimed at disrupting mainland security.

Mainland cyber investigators said the group had scanned more than 1,000 key information systems across more than 10 provinces in recent years, according to the Xinhua report. Targets were reported to include military-industrial assets, power grids, water infrastructure, transport systems and government networks.

They said the attackers tried to mask their origin by routing attacks through virtual private networks (VPNs), foreign cloud servers and “zombie machines” to hide behind IP addresses from multiple countries.

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