President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan stated on April 15 at the CYBERSEC 2025 opening ceremony that Taiwanese government networks face an average of 2.4 million intrusion attempts daily—double the number from two years ago.
In recent months, Taiwan has experienced a series of ransomware attacks targeting hospitals, schools, and listed companies. Law enforcement investigations have identified Chinese hackers as the perpetrators, highlighting Taiwan’s increasingly severe cybersecurity challenges.
President Lai emphasized that Taiwan, positioned at the critical first island chain defense line, faces not only military threats from China but also cyber risks. He stressed that neither individuals nor organizations can confront these escalating digital threats alone.
Recently, Lai proposed 17 national security response strategies, including measures to prevent malicious actors from compromising Taiwan’s cybersecurity environment through networks, applications, and AI tools.
The government has established a “National Information and Communication Security Development Program” to strengthen societal cyber defense resilience, enrich the cybersecurity industry ecosystem, and build emerging defense technologies. Lai added that Taiwan will continue promoting domestically developed security products and services while encouraging investment in cybersecurity startups.
At a pre-conference press briefing on April 14, Hong Wei-gan, General Manager of Trend Micro Taiwan, explained that generative AI has transformed cybercrime from “as-a-service” to “as-a-proxy.” Hackers can now establish automated processes through AI to increase attack efficiency and earn higher profits. This is particularly evident in phishing attacks, where hackers can rapidly generate customized emails in various languages targeted at specific industries.
Hong noted that criminal groups are expanding their reach to emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America, while targeting generative AI service providers like Amazon Bedrock and Google Vertex to steal cloud computing resources.
Source: Radio Free Asia, April 15, 2025
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/guoji/yatai/gangtai/2025/04/15/taiwan-cybersec2025-laichingte/