China calls for tighter data security

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BEIJING, July 20 (UPI) -- China says government and business must improve their ability to ward off hackers and data thieves in the face of increasing information security risks.

With increasing Internet use leading to more information security vulnerabilities, government agencies have been advised to reduce the number of channels through which hackers might be able to attack, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

A series of guidelines put forward by the State Council would have energy and finance sectors, nuclear facilities, space programs and large infrastructure projects put information security and supervision measures in place to guard against risks.

The National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China, the country's primary computer security monitoring network, reported this month that China faces increasing cyberattacks and threats from overseas despite improved security.

A total of 47,000 overseas-based Internet protocol addresses (IPs) were involved in attacks against 8.9 million Chinese computers last year, compared to 5 million targeted computers in 2010, the report said.