Over the past ten years, China has made remarkable progress in combating cyber crimes. In 2013, leading Internet companies in China pledged to form the nation’s first anti-cyber fraud initiative to combat the growing threat of illegal online activities.
This came after a June 18 call from the Ministry of Public Security, which reiterated the importance of enhancing cooperation between the private sector and law enforcement agencies. Here is a look back at the internet safety status back in 2000.
Savy internet users stepped up their online hacking campaigns more than a decade ago.
Back in 2000, Yahoo.com, then the world’s second largest commercial website was hacked.
The services Yahoo provided were suspended for 3 hours. And Yahoo isn’t the only company to have suffered.
In the same year, the email services of Sina.com was hacked. The Chinese web giant’s servers were interrupted for up to 18 hours.
Statistics show that major banks and companies across the world suffered economic losses worth about 800-million US dollars in 1998.
Zhang Ping, Director of Peking University Law School, said, "Hacking activities have been on the rise since 2000, we saw cases that government websites, communications infrastructure were hacked, and resulted in the collapse of some services. Countries should make efforts to counter those activities and make sure that the web is safe."
By 2012, China had 564 million Internet users. And the government has made efforts to combat cyber crimes.
According to Chinese law, those who deliberately attack communication systems by making and transmitting computer viruses or other destructive programs have violated laws. All those responsible for such crimes will be punished according to the law.