Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs will officially launch on Aug. 27, with information security and Web 3.0 technology as key focus areas to protect against Chinese cyberattacks amid escalating tensions between China and Taiwan.

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Fast facts

• The new ministry will be in charge of policies concerning information, telecommunications, communications, information security and the internet when it comes into being on Saturday.
• Minister Without Portfolio Audrey Tang, who has been tapped to head the new ministry, said in a recent interview with local media Liberty Times that the soon-to-be-launched ministry has adopted InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) technology to boost its cybersecurity capabilities.
• The information war between China and Taiwan appears to have expanded to the Web3 space, in which decentralized networks such as InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) have offered a useful means of combating distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
• Tang said the ministry is working to build the ministry’s website on the IPFS, which comes with an unusual URL — “ipns://moda.gov.tw” — that feeds snapshots of the site to regular content delivery networks using the HTTPS protocol.
• Taiwan has long been targeted by Beijing’s cyberattacks, especially following a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this month. Reuters reported, citing Tang, that cyberattacks on Taiwan government units on the day of Pelosi’s visit surpassed 15,000 gigabits, 23 times higher than the previous daily record.

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