Taipei, Taiwan

Hackers took "sensitive information" from Taiwan's biggest telecom provider, including military and official government documents and then sold it on the dark web, said the self-governed island nation's Ministry of National Defence.

Advertisment

The confirmation of the island's latest significant data leak was followed by a report by a local media TVBS regarding the hack of telecom giant Chunghwa Telecom. 

A screenshot from a post in which hackers declared they were "selling Chunghwa Telecom 1.7 TeraBytes of data", including government contracts, was included in that report.

"The initial analysis of this case is that hackers obtained Chunghwa Telecom's sensitive information and sold it on the dark web, including documents from the armed forces, foreign affairs ministry, coast guard and other units," the defence ministry confirmed in a statement as reported by news agency AFP.

Advertisment

Taiwan's defence ministry stated that the Air Force contract which was a part of the Chunghwa leak was "not confidential information, thus (there was) no information leakage". 

It also said that the correspondence between the Navy Department and Chunghwa did not include any classified information. 

Also read: 'Sorry for the trouble': Mayor of a Japanese town resigns after probe identifies 99 acts of sexual harassment

Advertisment

"We have asked the contractor involved to strengthen its information security control to prevent any further incidents," it said in the statement.

Neither the ministry in its statement nor the report by TVBS identified the hackers. Neither did they specify where they were located.

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not comment on the development.

Chunghwa in its statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Thursday announced that it had "conducted investigations to clarify the cause of the suspected incident".

"Currently, there is no significant impact on the Company's operations," it said, referring to potential losses from the data theft. 

Government officials have stated that the insistently repetitive cyber threats were a form of "grey zone harassment" that China engages in on a daily basis, which also includes hovering warplanes around the democratic island and dispatching vessels to its surrounding waters.

(With inputs from agencies)