Photo: Xie Jun/GT

China's cyberspace security is facing new challenges, ranging from rogue programs to security loopholes, which pushed the government to roll out a slew of measures to build a cyber security governance system, according to the China Internet Development Report. The document was released on the first day of the 2021 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, China's largest internet industrial expo, in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang Province. 

According to data released in the report, China captured about 23.07 million samples of rogue programs in the first half of 2021 that infected about 4.46 million main machines during the period, up 46.8 percent on a yearly basis. 

Besides, the China National Vulnerability Database recorded 13, 083 new general security loopholes in the first half of this year. Last year, such loopholes amounted to 20,704, up 27.9 percent on a yearly basis.

Cybersecurity risks also mushroomed along with the rapid development of China's internet sector. For example, the number of cybersecurity attacks on cloud platforms has been on the rise, with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on cloud platforms accounting for 71.2 percent of the overall such attacks in China in H1 of 2021.

China's mobile internet, industrial internet and blockchain are also easily vulnerable to high-danger loopholes and rogue programs, the report noted. 

In the face of such risks, the Chinese government has rolled out a series of measures to push the construction of a cybersecurity safeguard system. For example, the government has rolled out several laws in recent years, including  the protection of data security and key information infrastructure security. The government has also carried out data security investigations on a number of domestic internet companies like Didi Chuxing and ymm56.com.

The report also noted that China will make data security safeguard a "major task," and will continue to strengthen protection of personal information by implementing provisions under the Personal Informational Protection Law.