Report: Most cyber threats come from US

Most of the cyber threats targeting Chinese networks came from the United States, cybersecurity specialists said, citing a recent report.

The report, made and posted by China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team, revealed that 3.34 million computers on the Chinese mainland were controlled by more than 14,000 Trojan or botnet command and control servers in the US in 2018, up 90.8 percent from the number in 2017.

It also stated that 3,325 IP addresses in the US, up 43 percent from 2017, planted Trojans in 3,607 websites on the Chinese mainland.

"The figures mean the US has hosted the most overseas command and control servers used in the attacks, topping the list of overseas sources of cyberattacks targeting computers and websites on the Chinese mainland," Shen Yi, a researcher in politics and cybersecurity at Fudan University in Shanghai, said at the weekend.

"The numbers also suggest that the US government has not effectively dealt with online risks from its nation with a positive attitude, and the situation has been like this for the past few years," he added.

In 2017, for example, CNCERT reported that 3.23 million computers on the Chinese mainland were controlled by 7,731 malicious programs or servers originating from the US.

Compared with some figures released by enterprises in the US to show China is a major source of its online attacks, "our data are more authorized, as CNCERT is a national cybersecurity monitoring organization under the Cyberspace Administration of China," said Zuo Xiaodong, vice-president of China Information Security Research Institute.

He said there was concern over the information leak of Chinese netizens, government departments and companies caused by the malicious programs originating from overseas, noting that international cooperation is still the best way to alleviate the problem.

"How to use technologies to guarantee cybersecurity is a common problem that every country has to face and solve in the internet era, so cooperation among the nations and entities should be continued and further improved," he said, adding China and the US are no exception.

International cooperation between China and the United States to thwart online attacks should be continued and further improved, he said.

"Fighting online crimes and safeguarding online security is a global issue that needs all countries to make efforts to work together, and such cooperation must be developed based on the trust of each other," Shen said.

He highlighted the importance of trust in the cooperation. "If two countries have no trust with each other when working together to fight cyber threats, the cooperation in fact will be empty talk," he added.