Personal data protection to become top priority

Zhou Hongyi, founder of anti-virus software company Qihoo 360 Technology, gives a speech about "Data security in the age of Internet of Things" during the 2014 China Internet Security Conference (ISC 2014) on Sept 24, 2014 in Beijing. [Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Since the advent of "Celebgate", the term created to denote the recent cyber attack on Apple's iCloud cloud computing service, debate regarding personal privacy protection has once again turned into an Internet meme.

In the midst of the discussion for personal data security, the 2014 China Internet Security Conference (ISC 2014), an annual summit in the Asia Pacific information security field, was held on Wednesday at the Beijing National Convention Center.

According to convention participant Guo Qiquan, senior engineer at the Network Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, criminal activities throughout the Internet are becoming increasingly rampant in China.

"Despite the rise in crime, some of the official departments, large service sites and Internet service providers have not implemented safety management measures and technical protection measures to effectively protect individual data, resulting in a number of Internet fraud or cyber theft cases," said Guo.

"Compared with the US, the awareness of the importance of Internet security at corporate level are still under-developed in China," said Qi Xiangdong, president of Qihoo 360 Technology, one of China's leading online security service providers.

According to Qi, to fight against the online thieves and build a more reliable mobile payment service, Qihoo 360 Technology and China UnionPay have jointly launched a money indemnity product which is provided to customers of firms that suffer telecommunication fraud.

The service will provide a maximum of 3,000 yuan ($489) single cash indemnity or an up to 72,000 yuan annual reparations will be offered to victims. The caveat is that these victims would need to have 360 Security installed onto their mobile phones.

Online payment transactions handled by Chinese mobile payment service providers will exceed 9 trillion yuan ($1.45 trillion) in 2015, according to an industry report published by Internet Society of China in July.

"Except for Internet financing sector, virtualization and cloud-computing deployment have become a trend," said Wu Hequan, academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

According to Wu, as of 2015, there will be 90 percent penetration of state-owned enterprises and governmental department that rely on cloud computing products and solutions.

However, the dynamic virtual management mode and powerful computing and storage capacity, will also lead to new security issues.

During the meeting, other industry experts, including Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security of the US, Fred Cohen, the inventor of computer virus defense techniques, Yun Xiaochun, former director of national Information security technology research institute and Zhou Hongyi, founder of anti-virus software company Qihoo 360 Technology, have gathered under one roof, to discuss online security and cyber attack defense strategy.