China mulls legal definition of hack attack

China's governmental departments are working on the release of a legal definition for hacker attacks, so as to bring about clear standards for conviction and punishments of hacker attacks, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

According to Li Jiaming, director of the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC), the report of illegal activities on the Internet has been increasing year by year since its inception in June 2004. Now the number of reports stands at 1.64 million. The Chinese public is most concerned about Internet pornography and swindling, accounting for 48.5 percent and 32.6 percent of the total reports, respectively. Nearly 19 percent of reports are about intellectual rights infringement and viruses.

Hacking attack has already been incorporated in the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. Aside from the Crime of Illegal Intrusion into the Computer Information System and Crime of Destroying the Information System of Computers stipulated in the Criminal Law revised in 1997, China has included in its Amendment to the Criminal Law in 2009 illegal control of Computer Information System, Internet account theft and providing programs specifically for attacking and destroying as independent charge, which provides strong legal evidence for the crackdown on the botnet network, Internet theft and production and sales of Trojan programs.

By People's Daily Online