The Taiwanese government has announced that Chinese source code was discovered in the information systems of Taiwan's overseas diplomatic missions.

According to Taiwanese media outlets such as the United Daily News and the Liberty Times on October 13, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated the previous day that the vulnerability was discovered during a routine cybersecurity inspection of overseas missions conducted in December of last year.

The ministry added that the source code for some security software was identified as belonging to E-Core Technology based in Guangzhou, China.

The ministry explained that the software was used for information asset management and was unrelated to classified information. It noted that a review of connection records between the headquarters and overseas missions over the past year showed no abnormalities, and that the matter was reported to the Investigation Bureau under Taiwan's Ministry of Justice, which investigates national security-related crimes, as well as to higher authorities.

The New Taipei City Investigation Division under the Investigation Bureau launched an investigation into the bidding process for the program, identified cooperative relationships among three companies—Anhe, Kunyou, and Yiwei Technology—and transferred the case to prosecutors.

Receiving the case, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office searched 10 locations, including these companies, on the previous day regarding the origin, bidding, and contracting processes of the software under charges of government procurement law violations and fraud under the Criminal Code, while also summoning and questioning company representatives.

According to the prosecutors' investigation, Lu Yi-kun, the head of Anhe Technology, participated in Taiwan government bidding by disguising the program IP-guard, developed jointly with China's E-Core Technology, as "Made in Taiwan" through Kunyou Technology.

Kunyou won a competitive bidding contract worth 20 million New Taiwan dollars (approx. 800 million Korean won) for information asset management software over the three-year period from 2023 to 2025 using the software.

Yiwei provided user interface modification and maintenance services.

In response, the main opposition Kuomintang raised suspicions that lax cybersecurity management was to blame, pointing out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—which handles sensitive diplomatic information at the front lines of the nation's foreign affairs—was unaware of this fact for the past three years.

The party emphasized that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should immediately launch an investigation into whether sensitive data was stolen or leaked and provide a clear explanation to the public.

(Photo: Yonhap News)