Cyberattacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, from hospitals to banks, increased 6% in 2025 compared to the previous year, reaching an average of 2.63 million attacks a day, according to the country’s National Security Office, adding that some were synchronized with Chinese military exercises in what they already call “hybrid threats” to paralyze the island.
Taiwan has complained in recent years about what it sees as its neighbor’s “hybrid war” – from daily military exercises near the island to disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks – as Beijing ramps up military and political pressure to force Taipei to accept its sovereignty claims.
The average number of daily attacks in 2025 increased 113% from 2023, when the bureau began publishing such data, with sectors such as energy, emergency services and hospitals seeing the highest year-on-year increases, according to Taiwan’s National Security Bureau.
This trend indicates a deliberate attempt by the neighboring country to comprehensively compromise Taiwan’s crucial infrastructure and disrupt or paralyze Taiwanese functions and services, the report notes, even though China consistently denies being behind the cyberattacks.
Cyberattacks of greater sophistication
The Taiwanese report indicates that the attacks received were based on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks designed to disrupt essential services in Taiwan, as well as cyberattacks to steal information and penetrate telecommunications networks.
The report released by Taiwan also references science parks that support the semiconductor industry, home to companies such as TSMC, as well as many other key targets that have been attacked using a wide variety of advanced cyber threat techniques.
Professionalization of cybercrime
Geopolitical tensions, the offensive use of artificial intelligence and the growing professionalization of cybercrime have shaped a landscape of increasingly sophisticated, persistent threats linked to state and economic interests around the world. This is also revealed by the latest “Cyber Threats and Trends” report prepared by NTT DATA’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Department.
The study reveals that, during the first half of the year alone, ransomware attacks increased by 32% globally, consolidating itself as the most profitable and widespread cyber threat. In this sense, cybercrimes were also reinforced by the use of artificial intelligence technologies, boosting phishing and vishing campaigns (telephone fraud) through voice cloning and the creation of synthetic profiles. Techniques developed with the aim of deceiving victims, especially in sectors such as finance and human resources.
As a consequence of security breaches, malware (especially stealer) and social engineering campaigns, in a few months more than 7.7 million credentials have been detected stolen and exposed on the Dark Web.
Cybercrimes used artificial intelligence technologies, boosting phishing and vishing campaigns.
The United States continues to lead the ranking of the most attacked countries, with more than 4,000 incidents recorded, followed by Israel and India. As a result, estimates place the economic cost of cybercrime at a record $10.5 trillion annually, with spikes of up to an additional 40% in containment spending during the December and January campaigns.
