Internet hackers doubled the number of attacks on Chinese
government websites in 2005 over the previous year, figures from
the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical
Coordination Center of China show.
Hackers targeted government websites amounted to 2,027 times,
one-sixth of the 13,000 attacks, in China last year, Professor Du
Yaojin, an engineer of the center, said on March 30.
"Disguised tampering, such as attacks by Botnet, was not
included in the statistics," Du added.
Botnet is a network of automatic, or "zombie" computers, which
can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or
send out huge amounts of junk e-mail by professional hackers after
receiving commands from overseas operators or servers.
China has more than 1,200 government websites and three quarters
of Chinese counties have opened their own government websites.
"Without efficient security and emergency response systems,
leaking of important information is quite possible, which limits
the development of e-government of China," said Du.
(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2006)