No major losses for Taiwanese companies from recent cyberattacks: MODA

Taipei, Oct. 7 (CNA) Cyberattacks on several Taiwanese companies reported last week did not result in any major losses, Digital Affairs Minister Yennun Huang (黃彥男) said Monday.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Legislative Yuan committee hearing, Huang said the attacks were made through distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), referring to a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure.

Huang said there have been no serious interruptions to date on any of the victims' websites, and no material losses were caused in the attacks.

Huang's comments came after gasoline brand Formosa Petrochemical Corp., contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), and AI server maker Wistron Corp. filed posts over the weekend about the cyberattacks they faced on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, where their shares are traded.

According to Formosa Petrochemical, the attacks happened on Thursday, paralyzing the company's website, but the company activated a defensive mechanism soon after the attacks occurred to deal with them and get the website running normally again.

Formosa Plastics said the attacks did not affect its operations, but it pledged to continue to monitor the situation and take measures to further strengthen its cybersecurity.

Wistron and UMC posted similar statements, saying the cyberattacks did not result in any leaks of data related to the companies or individuals' personal information and that their operations remained normal.

Huang said the hackers in the three cases failed to invade the companies' internal systems and that the attacks were largely classified as the least severe level.

He did not say where the attacks originated.

In mid-September, MODA said, NoName057, a pro-Russia hacker, claimed that it launched DDoS attacks on about 45 Taiwanese entities, such as Taiwan's government agencies, financial firms, and even the Taipei Songshan Airport.

The affected institutions included the Maritime and Port Bureau, local tax authorities, high-level central government agencies, military units, and fully or partly government-owned financial and securities organizations, MODA said.

Banks were the primary targets in the private sector.

The impact was short-term, however, and most quickly resumed normal operations, according to MODA.

After the September attacks, the alert level was raised to that normally seen around a presidential election, with critical infrastructure required to report the status of attacks every day.

The Administration of Cyber Security (ACS) under MODA has said Taiwan has long been a target of cyberattacks from overseas, but it has continued to exchange information with other countries about cyberattacks in a bid to maintain a more secure information environment in Taiwan.