Within an hour of contacting the government, Taiwan’s minister for digital affairs Audrey Tang told TechCrunch by email that the exposed database had been flagged with Taiwan’s computer emergency incident response team, TWCERT, and was pulled offline.
The speed at which the Taiwanese government responded was breathtakingly fast, but that wasn’t the end of it.
Taiwan subsequently fined Hotai Motors for failing to protect the data of more than 400,000 customers, and was ordered to improve its cybersecurity.
In its aftermath, Taiwan’s vice premier Cheng Wen-tsan said the fine of about $6,600 was “too light” and proposed a change to the law that would increase data breach fines by tenfold.