The growing popularity of computers and the Internet has brought an explosion of computer hacking.
More foreign hackers are attacking China's computer networks, while domestic hackers are learning new hacking techniques from foreign Web sites, according to the Computer Security Supervision Unit of the Ministry of Public Security.
In the first nine months of this year, 2.8 million personal computers were sold in China, a rise of 28 per cent from a year ago and accounting for four per cent of the world's total.
Now, 542,000 computers are linked to the Internet and there are 1.175 million Net surfers. But the necessary security protection technologies have not yet been developed to cope with the growth of computer network usage and this has led to a sharp rise in hacking.
China's hacking started in 1986 when a computer professional attacked a stock brokerage house's network and netted 20,000 yuan (HK$18,716).
International hackers' raids on China networks have also increased sharply since China joined the Internet in 1994.