Only internal hacking attacks made China to make its Cyber Law stricter

As we all know a large portion of malware and other cyber attacks is coming from China. Zhao, the CEO of security consultancy Knownsec, called China "the world's malware factory," saying that the country has become a major source of online attacks and so-called zero-day attacks, which target previously undisclosed software flaws. Chinese hackers have become very famous in recent months for their widespread attacks against programs such as Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash.

For a long time Western media has been daubing Chinese hacking with little efforts undertaken by the local authorities to prevent this kind of crime. Indeed until recent time the Chinese criminal code contained only three articles pertaining to cybercrime. But in February the government passed a new legislation.

"China has made significant progress in cybercrime legislation and is putting in great efforts to strengthen it," said Man Qi, one of the co-authors of a recent paper on Chinese cyber-law published in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics.

Previously cyber crimes were punished by a maximum of three years imprisonment. Under the new regulation adopted at the beginning of the year the sentence for the computer hacking was extended to seven years with the definition of the cyber crime also broadened.

"These changes to the criminal code are important to crack down [on] cybercrime and also help to strengthen the protection of privacy and personal property," Qi said.

Meanwhile, the legislation in China is still weaker than its analog in the U.S. where cybercriminals are sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. While China has long been accused of tuning blind eye to cybercrime, now it is showing some signs of intention to fight cybercrooks on an international level, according to Qi.

And it is not surprising as now China itself hit by cyber attacks on a large scale level. In past few years some criminals posing as security experts have been offering their services to small businesses in China. If the firms did not hire them, hackers hit their websites with the Internet attacks, typically DDoS attacks, unless they get paid.

"We're starting to see Chinese hackers hacking internally now, too," says Scott Henderson, the author of a blog that covers Chinese hackers.

As China is wrestling the recession a big number of IT professionals lose their jobs and as a result turn to crime said Beijing-based security expert Wei Zhao.

"They cannot easily find jobs, maybe the security market is too small for them," he said in an interview.