Foreign hackers in China’s sights with proposed changes to cyber law

Beijing has proposed a revised internet law to punish foreigners who hack Chinese websites as it steps up its campaign against cyberattacks it blames on the West.

Although it was hard for governments to identify those behind cybercrimes, the move paved the way for China to take legal action against other states, analysts said.

The proposed cybersecurity law changes would let the government freeze assets of foreign individuals or groups if they damaged China’s key information infrastructure, Xinhua reported. Police would apply “other necessary punishment” to those outside the country who attacked, intruded, disrupted or harmed Chinese websites, according to the revised draft quoted in the report.

The draft had been sent to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for approval, Xinhua said.

China claims to be a victim of global cybercrimes, reporting growing numbers of attacks from overseas every year. Last year, authorities found more than 64,000 “control points” that had been controlling Chinese websites with malware from abroad, a 52 per cent rise from 2014, according to a government website.

In 2013, Xinhua called the US the top source of hackers who planted malware in its servers.