Taiwan Presidential Office spokesperson Chang Tun-Han has confirmed a cyber attack on Taiwan’s Presidential Office on Tuesday due to an alleged distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), which also impacted other government websites.
Hours ahead of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Chang Tun-Han, Taiwan Presidential Office spokesperson, confirmed the DDoS attack on the office in a post on Facebook, noting that the cyber attack was carried out by a group from outside Taiwan.
According to Reuters, the Chinese government threatened to take action in response to Pelosi’s trip, and Taiwan is reportedly readying air raid shelters in anticipation of a potential Chinese attack.
According to Tun-Han, the Taiwan Presidential Office website experienced up to ‘200 times in increased traffic’ than normal.
Other Taiwanese government sites were also down ahead of Pelosi’s visit, according to NBC News, including the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the website of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where Pelosi’s plane landed. As of publication, all three websites were up and running according to the news service.
Internet analysis at traffic monitoring group Kentik traced the cyber attacks on the three websites on Tuesday, describing the DDoS incidents as “effective even if they were not record breaking.” However, Doug Madory, director of Kentik noted that overall internet traffic for Taiwan looked “pretty normal”.