Taiwan Charges Two Executives Who Helped Chinese Cyber Spies Target ICIJ Journalists

Taiwan's Investigation Bureau charged two executives of the firm Abigail, Li Hualun and Chen Mengsen, with violating the personal data protection act after searching company offices, issuing deferred prosecution orders against both 12. Investigators found the two obtained LINE messaging accounts and leased them for roughly $161 apiece to Xiamen Empress Information Technology Co., a firm the bureau said acted under the direction of a Chinese Communist Party cyber unit 1. The accounts were used to impersonate journalists, including reporters affiliated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and, per Taiwanese outlets, the editor-in-chief of CommonWealth Magazine, in social engineering attacks against Taiwanese officials, scholars, and NGO workers 134. The case follows an ICIJ and Citizen Lab investigation that identified impersonation emails targeting Uyghur, Tibetan, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong diaspora activists and journalists, with Citizen Lab noting errors suggesting the attackers used artificial intelligence to automate targeting and message generation 1.