Categories: HackingMobileSecurity

93 percent of Government Chinese websites are vulnerable

A report issued by the China Software Testing Center revealed that 93 percent of Chinese websites are vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Nearly 93 percent of 1,000 Chinese government websites under evaluation is affected by vulnerabilities and other security issues. The data is part of a study conducted by the China Software Testing Center under the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, to evaluate the performance of China’s government websites.

The Chinese Government is considered by security experts the most dangerous persistent attackers, government entities and private firms of foreign states are daily targeted by China-based hackers.

However, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center highlighted that also Chinese entities are targeted by several cyber attacks, in 2013 threat actors hacked 2,430 Chinese websites, accounting for 4 percent of the government websites checked.

The hacks have had an adverse impact on the government’s image and pose serious threats to government operations, as well as to the security of governmental and individual information, the center said.

The nearly 1000 website analyzed by the researchers include infrastructure at ministerial, provincial, municipal, district and county levels.

The situation is worse for web application at the district or county level, nearly 97 percent of them is exposed to security risks.

Chinese websites 2Chinese websites 2

According to the report, 43 percent of the websites were categorized as “extreme risk,” and 30 percent were at “high risk” of exposure. The Chinese websites analyzed were all affected by several vulnerabilities, more than 50 percent of them were found to contain more than 30 security flaws. The data is disconcerting at least for 70 Chinese websites that had more than 100 security loopholes.

Why is the most common type of security flaws in the Chinese websites?

The most widespread security flaws are the “Heartbleed Bug,” information leakage and cross-site request forgery, which were detected in 27 percent of the websites analyzed.

“Website administrators have not established effective security and protection systems, and cannot keep a watchful eye on network security development trends or take effective measures, according to the report.” reported a blog post of ChinaDaily Europe.

Bad news also for security of mobile government, the study revealed that 60 percent of mobile government apps were vulnerable to hacking attacks.

“Their lack of security mechanisms could easily lead to phishing attacks and leakage of private or sensitive information, the report said.” adds ChinaDaily Europe.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  China, Chinese websites)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

US Treasury sanctioned the firm Funnull Technology as major cyber scam facilitator

The U.S. sanctioned Funnull Technology and Liu Lizhi for aiding romance scams that caused major…

28 minutes ago

ConnectWise suffered a cyberattack carried out by a sophisticated nation state actor<gwmw style="display:none;"></gwmw><gwmw style="display:none;"></gwmw>

ConnectWise detected suspicious activity linked to a nation-state actor, impacting a small number of its…

3 hours ago

Victoria’s Secret ‘s website offline following a cyberattack

Victoria’s Secret took its website offline after a cyberattack, with experts warning of rising threats…

20 hours ago

China-linked APT41 used Google Calendar as C2 to control its TOUGHPROGRESS malware

Google says China-linked group APT41 controlled malware via Google Calendar to target governments through a…

24 hours ago

New AyySSHush botnet compromised over 9,000 ASUS routers, adding a persistent SSH backdoor.

GreyNoise researchers warn of a new AyySSHush botnet compromised over 9,000 ASUS routers, adding a…

1 day ago

Czech Republic accuses China’s APT31 of a cyberattack on its Foreign Ministry

The Czech government condemned China after linking cyber espionage group APT31 to a cyberattack on…

2 days ago