China is facing a serious threat of Internet vulnerabilities to hacking, as statistics show that over 200,000 vulnerabilities were found from 2009 to 2016, a cyber security expert said at a conference on Tuesday.
According to China's National Vulnerability Database (CNVD), domestic Internet security monitoring platforms reported 25,314 vulnerabilities in 2015. Meanwhile, a report published by a security center affiliated to IT company Qihu 360 showed that 43.9 percent of 2.3 million monitored websites were found to have vulnerabilities, and 12.3 percent had high-risk vulnerabilites as of November 2015.
Yan Hanbing, a senior official with the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Coordination Center (CNCERT), said Tuesday that an increasing number of cyber vulnerabilities have been found by general software or revealed by individuals, partly due to the activity of domestic Internet security monitoring platforms in recent years.
Yan made the remarks at the 2016 China Internet Security Conference, which was jointly held by Qihu 360 and the Cyber Security Association of China on Tuesday in Beijing.
"The increase in number does not mean that our cyberspace is not safe. Instead, it shows that China is paying more attention to cyber security and will put more investment in the field," said Yan.
Xie Yongjiang, an associate professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said that Internet vulnerabilities are a double-edged sword, as they can bring harm to consumers or become strategic resources for companies or countries.
But several recent cases have stoked public concern about possible information leaks caused by Internet vulnerabilities.
In April 2015, Qihu 360's Internet security monitoring platform butian.360.cn found that tens of millions of Chinese residents registered in the country's social security system face a risk of personal information leaks due to system loopholes.
Yan pointed out that despite the exposure of Internet vulnerabilities, large numbers of them fail to be repaired quickly. For example, 40 percent of government websites failed to repair high-risk vulnerabilities that had been exposed for one month.
Cyber security expert Qin An previously told the Global Times that loopholes are common in the Internet era, but they should serve as a reminder to local governments to fix them as quickly as possible.
