Upcoming Research: Tensions Between China and Taiwan Realized on the Darknet

September 28, 2022

This research is now live >> Check it out here.

The year 2022 has been one of heightened global tensions and geopolitical military conflicts. Russia’s three-day “special military operation” against Ukraine has turned in months of heated battlefield bloodshed, cruise missile attacks, and sparked a global cyberwar touching hundreds of other non-Ukrainian nor Russian entities. Elsewhere, open sources estimate that over 100 people have died in a border conflict between the former Soviet states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both of which share a border with China. Meanwhile, a fragile ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to stop fighting that resulted in a couple hundred deaths in an Armenia enclave of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan just last month.

Amongst these hostilities are escalating, volatile tensions between China and Taiwan that stem from China’s “One-China Principle” and its refusal to recognize Taiwan’s sovereign independence.

In DarkOwl’s upcoming research investigation, our analysts take a closer look at how recent political tensions between China and Taiwan spill into the darknet, deep web, and greater cyber space.

Recent political tensions between China and Taiwan spill into the darknet and cybersphere.

In this paper, we will look at how numerous data leaks and cyberattacks have occurred in both the U.S. and Taiwan – prompted by a controversial political visit from US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi in August, and the subsequent approval from the Biden administration to deliver $1.1 Billion dollars in US weapons to Taiwan.

The new research piece will also shed light on the darknet’s response to concerted information operations and political escalations between the two countries, including chatter related to a potential military invasion of Taiwan, China’s role in Russia and across the globe, and general anti-China sentiment across several darknet discussion services. We also uncover some of the critical government and organization data leaks that have surfaced for both Taiwan and China and are in circulation in the darknet.