Taiwan’s financial system undergirds a $760 billion high-tech economy, but its vulnerability to advanced hacks has raised fears of a worst-case scenario: a full-blown cyberattack from China that sends its currency and markets into a tailspin.
To bolster its online defenses, government officials and financial institutions in Taipei are consulting security experts from the U.S. Treasury Department and working with American cybersecurity company SimSpace to run simulated cyberattacks, cramming a hypothetical three weeks of digital assaults into an eight-hour drill.
Tabletop cyberexercises are hardly new, even in Taiwan. But the urgency to bolster digital defenses in Taiwan is acute, as the island sits at the center of U.S.-China tensions and has a critical presidential election in January. A victory by the ruling party could prompt Beijing — which views Taiwan as its territory — to take a more aggressive approach toward Taipei.