With the objective of enhancing cooperation on network security between Taiwan and Asia Pacific countries, the International Workshop on Network Security and Emerging Technologies as part of the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) was held jointly by Taiwan, the US and Japan, taking place in Taipei from May 28-30, 2019; approximately 40 government representatives from 20 countries were in attendance.
　　The 10th meeting hosted by the Advisory Committee Member of National Security Council (NSC) Li Te-Tsai was held with the theme “A Discussion on the Establishment of International Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (ICCOE) in Taiwan”. NCC Commissioner Yeali S. Sun; Head of Department of Cyber Security (Executive Yuan) Hung-Wei Chien; and President of Institute for Information Industry Cheng-Hung Cho were all invited to attend the meeting as commentators. With view to facilitating the establishment of ICCOE in Taiwan, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) also accompanied workshop representatives to discuss the views of countries worldwide with regards to the need for a joint cyber defense system.
　　When delivering his speech, the NSC Advisory Committee Member Li Te-Tsai mentioned that cyber security is a national security and, as proposed by President Tsai, a key strategic development direction that could form a “cyber security triangle” together with national security meetings and Department of Cyber Security and NCC. Li further pointed out that, with respect to citizens’ livelihood, the eight key infrastructures of Taiwan were energy, water resources, transportation, communications, finance, medical care, government agencies and science parks, which required more investments in resources from our government and cooperation with other countries to perfect cyber security and protection thereof. Moreover, Li also suggested that “people”, “technology” and “platform” must be included under the ICCOE framework as key elements. According to Li, “people” refers to manufacturers, academic units and partners; “technology” includes not only the hardware, but also software, firmware, digital tools and even the development and research of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet Of Things (IoT), machine learning as well as the analysis of big data; and “platform” includes information sharing, event alerts and the training of cyber security talents in order to control cyber threats comprehensively.
　　During the meeting, the Head of Department of Cyber Security (Executive Yuan) Hung-Wei Chien described Taiwan’s cyber talent training program. In his presentation, he mentioned that the three objectives of our country’s national security strategy were 1) enhance Taiwan’s national information security protection system and capacity; 2) establish a national information security team to ensure the safety of digital home; and 3) promote independent research and development of national defense network security and the development of cyber industry. With respect to the cultivation of Taiwan’s information security talents, Chien also discussed the talent cultivation program and the information security talent development framework; and elaborated on the talent cultivation framework, courses and development blueprint and so on. Chien further made a brief introduction of Taiwan’s information security talent cultivation plan, which was established based on the cyber security framework of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) and mentioned the substantial successful results of cultivating information security talents in Taiwan.
　　NCC Commissioner Sun gave a brief introduction of the missions and objectives of NCC. She then introduced National Communications and Cyber Security Center (NCCSC) established by NCC through a four-year plan; four major mission platform established thereunder (C-NOC, C-SOC, C-CERT and C-ISAC); and some event monitoring, report, response and analysis examples thereof in related to the six key communications and broadcasting network infrastructure. Sun pointed out that data collection and analysis were key elements for perfecting the said missions; and that, after compiling data from the distribution host established in the network for detection and monitoring and telecommunications enterprises, threats related thereto were analyzed by NCCSC in order to share up-to-date information with related parties. In conclusion, Commissioner Sun mentioned that NCCSC must establish and enhance its capacity in terms of identifying and alerting potential threats and attacks, and analyzing cyber information. Sun emphasized that, in order to automatically obtain relevant information, automation was the key in the beginning of the four-year plan; and, upon acquisition a large amount of data, the assistance of technologies, such as big data analysis, machine learning and AI, played an important role in terms of enhancing our cyber analysis capability. Sun described how the said information is shared with eight key infrastructures in Taiwan and enhanced our how overall information security and protection capabilities would be important future missions for NCCSC.