Employees, contractor indicted over Radio Taiwan Int'l cyberattack

Taipei, Nov. 24 (CNA) The Taipei District Prosecutors Office on Monday indicted two employees and an outside contractor of Radio Taiwan International (RTI) for allegedly launching a cyberattack against the radio station's official website in September.

The suspects include engineer Wu Cheng-hsun (吳政勳), his manager Yueh Chao-chu (岳昭莒) and Huang Fu-lin (黃富琳), who worked at the systems maintenance contractor for RTI, according to the indictment document.

￭ Prosecutors probe employees, contractor over Radio Taiwan Int'l hack

Prosecutors said the men planned cyberattacks against RTI in June, with Wu giving Huang an account with the highest level of access to RTI's website so Huang could provide technical support and delete records of Wu's activities on the site.

Yueh, who was informed by Wu about his actions, did not intervene nor report them to his superiors.

On Aug. 20, Wu interfered with the parameters of the RTI website, changed its Japanese main page so that it showed simplified Chinese or garbled characters and interrupted the website's signal, prosecutors said.

On Sept. 11, 18, 19 and 20, he changed RTI's main site and replaced the website with the book cover of "The 'Retaking the Mainland' by Taiwanese Government: The Concept of Chinese Unification by the ROC," and changed the banner to the People's Republic of China flag as well as the United States' flag.

Moreover, after being questioned on Sept. 26, he logged onto the RTI website and disrupted its functioning, showing no signs of remorse, prosecutors said.

Wu and Yueh claimed they acted because they suspected Chinese capital was interfering with the RTI website, according to prosecutors.

Wu's actions damaged RTI's credibility and disrupted its operations, prosecutors said, while local media reported that Wu claimed he did so to "unveil loopholes" in the broadcaster's system.

The images that Wu put on the website, however, raised tensions across the Taiwan Strait, posing danger far exceeding general criminal offenses, prosecutors said.

Wu's plan to attack the site on Oct. 10, Taiwan's National Day, carries great symbolic meaning, they added.

As the only government-run radio station broadcasting to the international community, RTI is classified as Level-A key infrastructure according to the Regulations on Classification of Cyber Security Responsibility Levels, said prosecutors.

As such, disruptions of its systems affect the nation, public interest and public morale, they said.

Meanwhile, in a news report, RTI said that its personnel review committee in October had decided to fire Wu and issue a major demerit to Yueh for his supervisory misjudgment.