About half of the government websites at risk

About half of the government websites have security vulnerabilities, according to a survey by China's computer virus watchdog.

The National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center checked 2,714 government websites for security risks last year, and found 1,367, or 50.4 percent, faced security threats, according to the center's report.

The Web pages of many government agencies have been hacked, which might cause information leaks and threaten State security, the report said.

And many of the operators of the websites fail to install firewalls against hackers, which directly causes security vulnerabilities, according to the report.

Another report, released by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team and Coordination Center, states that 2,430 government websites were hacked in 2013, up 34.9 percent year-on-year.

Among the websites that were hacked, more than 90 percent were run by governments below the provincial level, it noted, adding that many Web pages of local government agencies were hacked and embedded with advertising links.

Despite the security risks, some governments have failed to input enough human and financial resources to ensure website safety, which has resulted in repeated cyberattacks, it said.