AIT director warns against Chinese control over 5G infrastructure
Taiwan News
Date: 2019/09/17
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan and the United States will for the first time conduct large-scale joint
AIT Director Brent Christensen at an event last year. (By Central News Agency)
Speaking at a seminar about artificial intelligence and cybersecurity in Taipei, the U.S. representative emphasized the risks of allowing China to control basic 5G systems, as the communist country could gain access to sensitive data and paralyze other countries’ communication networks, the Central News Agency reported.
The most immediate threat was no longer troops landing on the beach, but the malicious use of open societies and the open Internet to subvert democracy, Christensen reportedly said.
Chinese-backed attacks against Taiwan’s high technology sector had multiplied by seven from 2017 to 2018, and was likely to increase a further 20 times in 2019, he said. Christensen said that as he was speaking, hackers, including some from China, were stealing business secrets and intellectual property from Taiwan and from the U.S. [FULL STORY]
