Taiwan's Legislative Yuan faces 1 mn monthly cyber attacks from China

Chinese hackers launch an average of 900,000 attacks on Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (LY) each month, Taipei Times reported citing legislature's information technology (IT) department's statement.

The Legislative Yuan, is the highest legislative organ,which exercises legislative power on behalf of the people.

Cheng Hui-pin, the head of the IT department, revealed this information in response to questions from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chung Chia-pin. Chung asked questions about the security and quality of the legislature's wifi during a review of the LY's budget by the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee last Thursday, as per Taipei Times.

The Legislative Yuan's network is connected to devices with sensitive information that could harm national security if the system is compromised, Chung said, adding that the legislature's wifi is slow and experiences frequent outages.

Further, he added, some of the microphones utilised by the legislature's committees were so loud that they could damage hearing and make business impossible to conduct in adjoining rooms, adding that he emphasised that the IT department should submit a report on these problems.

The IT department must submit a report on these problems within three months or its budget could be suspended, Chung said.

While addressing the question, Cheng noted that cybersecurity is a top priority and that IT technicians have been detecting a high number of cyberattacks of Chinese origin targeting the legislature each month.

He said, the department routinely reviews the legislature's cyberdefenses as required under the Cyber Security Management Act, adding that the detailed report on the issues raised by the committee would be compiled and submitted when ready.

According to Taipei Times, after negotiations between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members of the committee, lawmakers issued a resolution requiring the IT department to address the issues without freezing its budget.

The IT department has been instructed to test all devices connected to the legislature's network for security and to check the audio equipment.