Penghu fake invoice case Finance Minister: The system has not been attacked by hackers and investigation is under active investigation

A case of fake invoices occurred in Penghu in October. Finance Minister Zhuang Cuiyun said today that the unified invoice system has not been attacked by hackers.

[Reporter Zheng Qifang/Taipei Report] A fake invoice case occurred in Penghu County in October and is being investigated by the Penghu District Prosecutor’s Office. Minister of Finance Zhuang Cuiyun responded to the Finance Committee of the Legislative Yuan today and said that the Ministry of Finance has provided evidence three times and is actively investigating. In addition, after inspections by the response task force and two trustworthy information security vendors, the unified invoice system has not been attacked by hackers or other abnormal situations.

A man surnamed Zhang from Penghu was suspected of using multiple fake winning invoices to redeem his winnings, including two invoices worth tens of millions. The bank found abnormalities and refused to redeem the prize and called the police. According to an inventory of the Ministry of Finance, Zhang Nan and others have successfully redeemed 18 winning invoices, claiming bonuses of more than 190,000 yuan. The maximum winning amount in a single ticket is 40,000 yuan. The bonuses will be recovered after the fraud is confirmed. There are also 3 invoices that have not been successfully redeemed, including 2 special prize invoices worth 10 million yuan and 1 first prize invoice of 200,000 yuan.

In response to the Penghu fake invoice case, DPP legislator Wang Shijian asked that this year there were 80 cloud invoices that were found to be abnormal or fraudulently issued. What should be done if tens of millions of invoices were really fraudulently issued? How to prevent people from using AI to cross-test random codes on cloud invoices?

Zhuang Cuiyun explained that after the Penghu invoice fraud case occurred, the Ministry of Finance took the initiative to file a complaint with the District Prosecutor's Office and provided relevant evidence and information to the Penghu District Prosecutor's Office three times. The Ministry of Finance also set up a response task force and invited two vendors with credibility in information security to conduct an inspection to confirm that there were no abnormalities in the current system, that it had not been attacked by hackers, and that the information security was stable. As for whether there are unscrupulous people using AI to test cloud invoice random codes? Zhuang Cuiyun responded that the District Prosecutor's Office is currently investigating, and the Ministry of Finance's task force is also continuing to inspect and check whether the high bonuses in the past were claimed by the parties involved. As a result, the parties or relatives received the awards.