China’s cyber army has intensified attacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure in 2025, marking a significant escalation in digital warfare tactics.
Taiwan’s national intelligence community documented a troubling trend: approximately 2.63 million intrusion attempts per day targeted critical systems across nine key sectors, including energy, healthcare, communications, and transportation.
This represents a 6 percent increase from 2024, signaling an accelerating threat landscape that demands immediate attention from cybersecurity professionals and policymakers alike.
The campaigns reflect a sophisticated, multi-layered assault strategy coordinated with military exercises and political events.
Cyberattacks spiked during Taiwan’s major ceremonies and high-level diplomatic visits, with May 2025 experiencing unprecedented activity coinciding with President Lai’s inauguration anniversary.
This correlation between digital and physical coercive actions reveals a comprehensive approach to destabilizing Taiwan’s operations and gathering intelligence on government decision-making processes.
The National Security Bureau analysts identified that energy and healthcare sectors faced the most severe onslaught, with five major Chinese hacker groups—BlackTech, Flax Typhoon, Mustang Panda, APT41, and UNC3886—leading coordinated operations.
These groups employed ransomware against hospitals, with at least 20 confirmed cases involving stolen medical data sold on dark web forums.
The targeting of Taiwan’s healthcare infrastructure illustrates how adversaries deliberately threaten civilian populations and essential services.
Vulnerability Exploitation as the Primary Attack Vector
The NSB researchers noted that vulnerability exploitation accounted for more than half of all hacking operations, representing a strategic shift toward weaponizing unpatched systems.
Threat actors conducted intensive reconnaissance of network equipment and industrial control systems in Taiwan’s energy sector, using vulnerability scanning tools to identify weak entry points before deploying malware.
The technical approach involves mapping network topology through ICMP and TCP scanning, identifying outdated firmware versions, and leveraging known CVEs to establish initial access.
Once inside, attackers maintain persistence through web shell installation and credential harvesting.
The telecommunications sector proved particularly vulnerable, with hackers penetrating service provider networks to access backup communication links through compromised administrative accounts.
Beyond Taiwan’s borders, the campaigns extended to semiconductor and defense supply chain partners, targeting design documentation and strategic plans.
This broader targeting strategy underscores China’s intention to compromise Taiwan’s technological advantage and industrial capacity.
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