Cyberattack crashes Taiwan's presidential office website

The official website of Taiwan's presidential office suffered an overseas cyberattack on Tuesday ahead of President Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, the office said in a statement.

The site was attacked around 5 p.m., the statement said, several hours before Ms. Pelosi landed. Site traffic increased up to 200 times over a normal day, preventing the website from displaying content for 20 minutes.

It resumed its normal operation after troubleshooting. , according to the statement.

Historically, Taiwanese websites – especially those of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party – have been targeted by Chinese hackers at critical times, such as elections and crises. While it's unclear whether the blackouts were related to Ms Pelosi's trip, analysts have warned that cyberattacks could accompany other attempts by China to signal displeasure with the visit.

Late Tuesday, the Taiwanese government's main portal website also appeared to be down, although the cause of the outage was not immediately clear.

A spokesperson for the presidential office said it would continue to strengthen its oversight and ensure the security and stable operation of key infrastructure in the face of "continuing complex information operations by foreign forces".< /p>