Taiwan’s defence university computers hacked

TAIPEI: The National Defence University (NDU) in Taiwan confirmed that its computer system had been hacked in July but said that no classified information had been stolen.

NDU said its academic network had been hacked, but that only ordinary academic research materials had been stolen.

It said that it had already reinforced the firewall used by its computer system.

The university was responding to media reports saying several NDU units, including a programme for the study of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), had seen their computer networks breached last month, presumably by hackers from China.

The media reports claimed that stolen information included administrative data, student profiles and important PLA research material.

The reports said the military was assessing the damage and identifying the portions of information that had been stolen.

The United Evening News cited military sources saying all data had been emptied in the cyber attack.

The newspaper said the cyber attack carried footprints of Chinese hackers, but the military had yet to determine whether the attack came from outside or whether an internal breach had been involved.

The sources were cited by the paper as saying Taiwan’s military had set up cyber troops to help the country’s armed forces build up preventive and counter-attacking mechanisms against hacking.

There have been cross-strait cyber engagements and sometimes hackers have managed to breach the systems of sensitive facilities, the sources said.

But it was the first time that NDU had seen its data stolen in a cyber attack, the sources added. — The China Post/Asia News Network