[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] It has been reported that the Taiwanese government's household registration system was hacked, resulting in the leakage of personal information of about 200,000 Taiwanese citizens.
According to local media on the 30th, a hacker posted on the overseas cybercrime forum 'Breach Forums' in the early morning of the 21st, offering to sell household registration-related data of 200,000 Taiwanese people. The hacker revealed that the source of this data was the Household Registration Office under the Ministry of the Interior of Taiwan and explained that personal information such as military service, education, address, and marital status could be obtained.
The hacker further claimed to possess personal data of a total of 23 million Taiwanese individuals and stated that it could be traded for $5,000 (approximately 7.12 million KRW) or an equivalent value in Bitcoin.
In response, Taiwanese authorities launched an investigation. The Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Justice of Taiwan, which investigates serious crimes including national security-related offenses, announced the preliminary investigation results on the same day, stating that the hacking data of 200,000 people disclosed by the hacker originated from the Yilan area in the northeast and was leaked from another agency during the 2018 data linkage process. They also revealed that the leaked data included personal information of current and former politicians such as local officials in Yilan and legislators (members of the National Assembly).
Regarding this, the Ministry of the Interior of Taiwan stated the previous day that the Household Registration Office's data system is physically separated into internal and external networks to protect the computer network from external intrusion, making leakage unlikely. They also mentioned that the personal data disclosed on the cybercrime forum appears to have been compiled by gathering data from multiple databases.
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