Taiwanese citizens are receiving critical cybersecurity awareness and cyber defense training funded by a Taiwanese semiconductor magnate. Axios reports that Taiwanese tech magnate Robert Tsao pledged approximately $20 million in funding for Kuma Academy. The goal is to prepare Taiwanese citizens for any possible Chinese invasion.
Kuma Academy has ambitious goals: it plans to provide civilian military training for three million Taiwanese citizens over the next three years.
Course material includes spotting and debunking online disinformation, and holding advanced courses on open source intelligence gathering (OSINT). The OSINT courses will be taught by veteran volunteer hacking groups.
According to Axios, OSINT techniques aren’t popular in Taiwan, despite the number of Taiwanese hacking groups. The Kuma Academy would help train Taiwanese citizens to detect non-Taiwanese language popular online, and social media tracking to detect possible Chinese impersonators claiming to be Taiwanese.
“War is, at its most basic nature, a contest of wills. The two sides use a variety of methods to try to force the other to obey its will. Armed conflict is only one form of modern warfare.”
Ho Cheng-hui, Kuma Academy cofounder
The hope is that by strengthening Taiwanese defenses and citizen morale, they will push back against the common belief in Taiwan that if China were to invade, they would have no choice but to surrender.
Not surprisingly, Taiwan and its citizens are very carefully watching the Ukraine and Russia war. The will and strength of the Ukrainian people are something Taiwan wants to emulate.
Russia has spread propaganda and “targeted disinformation” against the Ukrainian population with the intent of weakening their morale, per Axios. Meanwhile, Ukrainians have tracked Russian disinformation campaigns and utilized OSINT techniques to help compile evidence of Russian war crimes.
