Cyber Incident Victim: Heilongjiang Society Scientific Community Federations
Date:
Aug 2022
Location:
China
Summary
Hacktivists claiming affiliation with Anonymous defaced a Chinese government website, replacing its content with a message supporting Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and retaliating against alleged distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting Taiwanese government websites. The defacement included a meme-inspired phrase, embedded videos featuring a song by artists from Malaysia and Taiwan, and Taiwan’s national anthem. Taiwanese officials reported brief outages on presidential and other government sites, attributing them to overseas DDoS attacks that reportedly overwhelmed normal traffic levels, though cybersecurity experts questioned both the scale of the disruptions—suggesting potential traffic overloads from user activity—and the attribution to state-sponsored actors, characterizing the incidents as uncoordinated hacktivist actions.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 2 techniques |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On August 3, 2022, hackers claiming affiliation with the Anonymous collective defaced the website of China’s Heilongjiang Society Scientific Community Federations, a government agency. The attackers replaced the site’s content with a message supporting U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which included the phrase “Taiwan numbah wan!”—a meme-based racist imitation of a Chinese accent. The hackers explicitly framed the defacement as retaliation for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting Taiwanese government websites, referencing an incident on August 2 where Taiwan’s presidential website experienced a 20-minute outage attributed by officials to an overseas DDoS attack. A local journalist reported the attack involved traffic volumes 200 times higher than normal daily levels. Later on August 2, additional Taiwanese government websites experienced disruptions, fueling speculation about Chinese state involvement.
The defacement of the Heilongjiang Society Scientific Community Federations site included two embedded videos: one featuring the song “Fragile” by Malaysian rapper Namewee and Taiwan-based Australian singer Kimberley Chen, and another playing Taiwan’s national anthem. Cybersecurity experts expressed skepticism regarding both the attribution of the DDoS attacks and their technical severity. Johannes Ullrich, Dean of Research at the SANS Technology Institute, characterized the attacks as uncoordinated and morally indiscriminate actions by Chinese hacktivists rather than state-sponsored operations. Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, suggested the Taiwanese presidential website outage might have resulted from organic traffic surges due to public interest in Pelosi’s visit, rather than a deliberate attack. No official statements from Chinese authorities or the Heilongjiang Society Scientific Community Federations regarding remediation efforts or technical impacts were documented in the available reporting.