Chunghwa Telecom breach put 1.7TB of Taiwanese government data on the dark web

Taiwan's ministry of national defense confirmed on March 1, 2024 that hackers had stolen sensitive data from Chunghwa Telecom, the island's largest telecommunications operator, and offered it for sale on a dark web forum. The disclosure followed a report by the Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS.

The sellers advertised roughly 1.7 terabytes of material taken from the company. According to the ministry and press accounts, the trove included documents connected to the armed forces, the ministry of foreign affairs and the coast guard administration, among them contracts between government bodies and the telecom.

The ministry played down the sensitivity of what had surfaced, saying an air force contract in the leak was not classified and that correspondence between the navy and Chunghwa contained no confidential information. It said it had asked the contractor to strengthen its information security controls to prevent further incidents. Chunghwa Telecom said there was no significant impact on the company's operations.

Neither the ministry statement nor the TVBS report identified the attackers or said where they were based, and no formal attribution was issued. Parts of the wider coverage linked the theft to China aligned actors, and Security Affairs placed it against a backdrop of sustained cyber pressure on Taiwan, but Taiwanese officials did not name a perpetrator in their public statements at the time.