Hacker detained for selling emergency response data to funeral firms

Kaohsiung, July 1 (CNA) A man surnamed Pan (潘) has been detained for allegedly hacking into emergency response systems and selling dispatch information to funeral businesses, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office said Tuesday.

Prosecutors said funeral business operators connected to the case were released on bails ranging from NT$30,000 (US$1,028) to NT$500,000, after searches were conducted on June 13 and June 24 this year.

Four funeral businesses, their sales staff and cooperating IT engineers are under investigation, they said.

According to the Kaohsiung City Field Division of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, the suspect accessed the Kaohsiung City Fire Department's mobile dispatch system and emergency medical system over a period of more than four years.

Investigators said Pan, a 30-year-old former private ambulance driver, intercepted dispatch data including caller times, case type, incident address and GPS coordinates.

He allegedly extracted large volumes of reference information from a machine operated by a contractor in 2022 and later used the same method to obtain real-time case data from 21 counties and cities in Taiwan.

Pan allegedly built a cloud-based development platform to deliver the data, used a mobile phone as a data server, and was paid monthly fees ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of Taiwan dollars by funeral service providers.

Using the intercepted information along with location tools such as Google Maps and a website that streamed real-time surveillance footage, funeral companies monitored emergency cases and sent staff to the scene, prosecutors allege.

Investigators said each firm gained an estimated five to 10 additional funeral services per month by responding quickly to emergency cases. In some instances, staff reportedly arrived before ambulances and handed out business cards.

The 119 dispatch system -- Taiwan's equivalent of the United States' 911 system -- experienced abnormal external connections between June and August 2024, disrupting operations, investigators added.

Despite attempts by the National Fire Agency and the Kaohsiung City Fire Department to restrict access and reduce data disclosure, the breaches continued.

Pan admitted to the offenses, which investigators allege involved more than 30 million unauthorized system connections annually, posing a serious threat to the public interest.

The Kaohsiung District Court has approved prosecutors' request to detain Pan as they investigate him for suspected offenses against computer security under the Criminal Code and broaden their probe into the case.