It's like Germany's entire population was hacked

Jan 4, 2012 10:44 GMT  ·  By

The numerous hacking operations that took place in China in the last days of 2011 may have affected around 100 million users and even though some of the websites in question denied their security was breached, the number of victims is much higher than in a normal cyberattack.

Security solutions provider Qihoo 360 representatives said that the massive quantity of information ended up being published online due to the fact that most websites failed to deploy any encryption method to protect their customers’ assets, Caixin reports.

Qihoo 360 monitored the hackings that started on December 21 when the China Software Developer Network (CSDN) alerted 6 million of its clients, advising them to immediately change their passwords to avoid any incidents.

A few days later, Internet forum Tianya, social network sites Renren and Kaixin001, and micro-blogging platform Sina Weibe joined the list of victims. A couple of gaming sites, 17173.com and duowan.com, were also breached.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) began investigating the hacking spree on December 28, urging all the affected companies to inform users on the incidents.

While it’s unclear if the operations were somehow coordinated, the latest events brought to light some serious flaws in the current legislation regarding the protection of Internet users.

“Currently there are only ten laws and regulations, mostly pertaining to the information industry,” Beijing Lanpeng Law Firm head Zhang Qihuai said.

Unfortunately, since the way these laws should be applied hasn’t been clarified, Zhang says it’s “impractical to use them to protect users.”

Sina Weibo and NetEase both came forward to deny rumors which claim that millions of data sets, including credit card details from the Communications and Minsheng Bank, were stolen from their servers.

Nevertheless, they advise their customers to be on the lookout for any suspicious activities, especially if their account’s credentials were utilized on other sites as well.