Taiwan denies cyberattack claims as China seeks arrest of 20

Taipei, June 5 (CNA) Taiwan on Thursday denied China's allegation that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects.

On June 5, the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau issued warrants for 20 individuals it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM).

The bureau alleges they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company.

"The ICEFCOM, under Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), directed the illegal attack," the warrant claims.

The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,388) on each of the 20 individuals named in the warrant, which also listed their National Identification Card numbers.

On May 20, the bureau said "hackers" were behind the alleged attack, according to a May 27 report by China's state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The ICEFCOM on Thursday said the bureau's accusation that it had conducted a cyberattack against a Guangzhou-based company was unfounded and an act of "slander."

The ICEFCOM said in a statement that the false accusations on May 20 and 27 were widely reported by China's state-run media and later echoed by the Taiwan Affairs Office.

The statement said the propaganda campaign escalated, culminating in Thursday's warrant, which it described as a deliberate attempt to unsettle and intimidate the Taiwanese public.

China has also posed a global threat to cyberspace, ICEFCOM said, citing recent statements from the Czech Republic and the EU condemning China's "malicious cyber campaign" and reports naming the Chinese Communist Party as a suspect in hacking and information security risks.

ICEFCOM spokesperson Col. Hu Chin-lung (胡錦龍) told CNA that most of the individuals named in the warrant have retired from the military.

Hu pointed out that some of the photos shown by the bureau appeared to be quite old.

"Some of the photos look like headshots taken during high school training programs," Hu said. "They may have been obtained from a third-party educational institution."

When asked about Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Jessica Chen's (陳玉珍) suggestion that the bureau's possession of the individuals' National ID numbers could indicate a data breach by China, Hu said no military databases containing that information had been compromised.

Hu said the ICEFCOM is investigating how the bureau obtained the information, noting that a major leak of Taiwan's National Health Insurance data between 2009 and 2022 could be a possible source.