At the Security Summit organized by DIGITIMES on September 25, Herming Chiueh, deputy minister at the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA), highlighted the disparity in cybersecurity resources between the government and private sector. He noted that while the government employs about 70,000 staff members, comparable to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), it cannot allocate the same proportion of personnel to cybersecurity as TSMC, which is managed by just 80 engineers.
DIGITIMES and IC Broadcasting president Colley Hwang, in his opening speech at the two-day Security Summit, emphasized that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recent 12-day visit to Taiwan primarily aimed to strengthen connections. Hwang pointed out that with the rise of Generative AI (GenAI), AI is poised to replace software, while hardware remains difficult to substitute due to its cost-effectiveness.
Hwang emphasized that Taiwan's survival in the GenAI world hinges on business-to-business (B2B) rather than business-to-consumer (B2C) strategies. The GenAI trend has significantly benefited large cloud companies such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as Taiwan's GPU OEM and AI server assembly businesses.
Furthermore, Hwang asserted that Taiwan has moved beyond its former position of offering low-cost OEM and ODM contracts to overseas companies. He cited Quanta's profits as evidence that the era of minimal earnings is over for Taiwanese companies in this sector.
Chiueh revealed that in the past two years, there have been six cyber attacks, with three being large-scale incidents more severe than those occurring during US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit. The 2024 presidential election's vote-counting system was also targeted. Fortunately, the government's cybersecurity measures, extended overseas through submarine communication cables, successfully prevented any serious cyber attacks from affecting the vote count.
Comparing government and private sector cybersecurity, Chiueh explained the challenges faced by the public sector. While TSMC maintains solid security with just 80 staff members out of 70,000, the government, with a similar number of employees, struggles due to its diverse and multi-generational IT systems, in contrast to TSMC's unified system.
Chiueh outlined the government's focus on cybersecurity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as part of the National Project of Hope. Resources will be directed towards helping these businesses digitalize and establish robust cybersecurity measures. He stressed the need for the government to adopt a customizable zero-trust security model in the future.
To support this initiative, Chiueh encouraged cybersecurity businesses to have their products certified by the National Institute for Cyber Security. This certification will be crucial for meeting future government requirements for IT and cybersecurity purchases.
