A talk on China’s military cyber-attack capabilities has been pulled from the Black Hat security conference schedule following pressure from Taiwanese and Chinese agencies.
The talk, entitled “The Chinese Cyber Army: An Archaeological Study from 2001 to 2010,” was billed as an analysis of China’s government-backed hacking initiatives, based on intelligence gathered from a variety of Asian intelligence groups. The talk was to be given by Wayne Huang, chief technology officer with Taiwanese security vendor Armorize, and Jack Yu, a researcher with the company.
On Wednesday Armorize CEO Caleb Sima announced via Twitter that the talk had been pulled, saying that the “Taiwanese [government] is prohibiting it due to sensitive materials.”
However, Huang said that he decided to pull the talk after vetting it with several organizations that had contributed intelligence and getting pressure from several places, both in Taiwan and in China. In a telephone interview, he wouldn’t say who complained or why, but he said that by pulling the talk Armorize will be able to maintain its good relations with the Asian security community.
“We ran the materials by some key people and they were not happy with it,” he said.