The Taipei Times report that hackers from the PLA has successfully infiltrated the bastion of Taiwanese democracy:

INFILTRATION: An investigation bureau source said Fujian-based hackers had attacked computers in the offices of several legislators, but others denied that this was the case

A note on a piece of paper indicating that China-based hackers, presumed to belong to a special unit under China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), had broken into the legislature’s computer system, has rattled cyber security personnel over the past two weeks.

Sounds serious? Well, when you actually read the article you find:

• The legislature’s IT department found out that several computers had a virus
• It quarantined the computers, and is in the process of removing the virii
• It denies that the China or the PLA was behind any ‘attack’
• The whole basis of this article is an anonymous note sent to a few legislative assistants

So, perhaps this article should be renamed “Assistant clicks on something he shouldn’t, get’s a virus, blames it on China.” . Doesn’t make such a good headline though.

Of course, one reason for the Taipei Times to run a non-story like this is that the only other news at the moment is the terminally boring (and politically inconvenient for the TT) “group of ‘important’ people urge Chen to resign. Chen says he isn’t going to.”. At least the cyber-attack story is original.