Palau confirms island nation’s first ‘major’ cyberattack, blames China

Palau President Surangel Whipps, on Wednesday (Jun 5) confirmed that the island nation witnessed its first major cyberattack and said that their analysis suggested that China was involved.

The Pacific archipelago is one of the 12 states across the world that recognise Taiwan as a self-rule island and maintain diplomatic ties with the island, which China claims as its territory.

What we know about the cyberattack

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Whipps said that the attack, where thousands of documents were stolen from island nation's government, took place soon after Palau signed a new 20-year economic and security deal with the United States.

“This is really the first major attack that we’ve seen on government records,” said Palau’s president during his visit to Japan. A report by the New York Times said that more than 20,000 documents were stolen from Palau’s government, back in March.

The archipelago made of 350 small islands in the Pacific Ocean is becoming increasingly significant for Washington as it has sought to counter Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

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Earlier this year, the US reportedly finalised the long-delayed plan to give Palau hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over the next two decades.

The documents, stolen in March, appeared on the dark web a month later and, according to NYT, included a presentation about a US radar installation in Palau marked, “For Official Use Only.”

It also reportedly had crew lists of Japanese Navy ships which had visited the island nation. Some of the thousands of documents stolen also detailed the close relationship between Palau and Taiwan.

After the NYT report, Taiwan, on Monday (Jun 3) condemning the cyberattack said that it was ready to help Palau beef up its digital defences against “authoritarian infiltration.”

Palau’s president blames China

“China wants to weaken those relationships, show our vulnerability, and what a great way to do it by hacking our system,” said Whipps presumably referring to the island nation’s relations with Taiwan and the US.

According to Palau’s president, the analysis of the data showed the ransomware was likely developed in Russia. It was sent out of Malaysia and “it looks like it has ties back to China”.

He added, “The reason we say maybe there’s government involvement is that they weren’t interested in money. They really didn’t demand any money.”

However, the NYT reported a ransomware group known as DragonForce claimed responsibility for the cyberattacks and said it carried out the ‘hack purely for financial gain’.

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Palau’s president also accused China of not respecting their boundaries and said this is not the first incident, referring to “research vessels conducting activities within our waters, without our permission.”

China rejects claims

In a separate interview, Palau’s president had said “It is unfortunate that China would do things like this,” and reaffirmed ties with Taiwan.

China has since rejected the allegations and calledWhipps’ remarks “extremely irresponsible”.

“It is extremely irresponsible for Palau to jump to conclusions and make unfounded accusations and smears against China without valid evidence,” said the Chinese foreign ministry, as quoted by NYT.

However, on Tuesday Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said she was not aware of the reports and that Beijing has “always opposed any form of cyberattack”.

(With inputs from agencies)