China’s cyberattacks on Taiwan’s key infrastructure from hospitals to banks rose 6% in 2025 to a daily average of 2.63 million, the island’s National Security Bureau (NSB) said. Some of the hacks were synchronized with military drills in hybrid threats to paralyze self-governed Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and threatens to forcibly annex.
Taipei has condemned China’s coercion, which includes daily military drills near the island and disinformation campaigns.
The average number of daily cyberattacks in 2025 jumped 113% from 2023, when the NSB began publishing such data, with sectors such as energy, emergency rescue and hospitals seeing the sharpest annual increases, the NSB reported in January.
“Such a trend indicates a deliberate attempt by China to compromise Taiwan’s crucial infrastructure comprehensively and to disrupt or paralyze … government and social functions,” the report said.
The bureau said China’s cyber army timed operations to coincide with military and political coercion. For example, China launched 40 “joint combat readiness patrols” by sending military planes and ships near Taiwan, with cyberattacks escalating on 23 of those occasions.
China also increased hacking during politically sensitive moments, such as when Taiwan President Lai Ching-te marked his first year in office in May 2025 and when Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim met with European lawmakers in November.
“China’s moves align with its strategic need to employ hybrid threats against Taiwan during both peacetime and wartime,” the report said.
China’s tactics included distributed denial-of-service attacks to disrupt Taiwan’s daily life as well as attacks to steal information and penetrate the island’s telecommunications networks, the report found.
Science parks that anchor Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, a critical hub in the global supply chain, were also prime targets, with attackers seeking to steal advanced technologies.
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