THE MAIN opposition party of self-ruled Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party, said yesterday its headquarters had been targeted by Chinese government hackers.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island with his Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalists. Beijing continues to claim Taiwan as its own.
Alex Huang, director of the DPP’s policy research committee, said the attacks were linked to Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections, which are scheduled for January.
“Most of our party officials have had their e-mails hacked into and we have lost sensitive documents concerning campaign schedules and promotional material,” Mr Huang told local media.
“Some of the computers have been planted with Trojan horse viruses so hackers could monitor the machines’ activities.”
However, Mr Huang said the e-mail of DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen had not been affected. Ms Tsai is standing against President Ma Ying-jeou, who is a KMT leader.
Mr Ma has boosted China ties and overseen a number of landmark trade deals with Beijing since taking over in May 2008.
DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai told the Taiwan News that an internal investigation had shown that the party’s computer systems had been hacked by the Xinhua News Agency in Beijing, which had then been transferred to a branch of the agency in Malaysia, and that DPP staff had their e-mail hacked.
The attacks have been going on since March, with some coming from the mainland and others from the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. He also said the DPP’s e-mail had been accessed by some government departments.
The report comes just days after the computer security giant McAfee gave details of a huge hacking attack by a country which analysts were sure was China.
China denies being behind any government hacking campaigns and says that it, too, is a victim of hacking attacks.