Chinese city of Shaoxing named world’s top hacker hub

LONDON - An American Internet security company has named the Chinese city of Shaoxing as the world’s cyber-espionage capital.

According to a research by Symantec, almost 30 percent of “targeted attacks” were sent from China and 21.3 percent originated from Shaoxing in eastern China alone.

The key targets of Chinese hackers were mainly experts in Asian defence policy and human rights activists, researchers, who traced 12 billion emails for the study, said - suggesting state involvement.

Symantec is assisting the investigation into suspected hacking attacks on Google, which closed its website in China last week after refusing to censor itself on the government’s orders, The Times reports.

Cyber-espionage uses emails sent in small volumes with legitimate-looking attachments or documents to fool the user into letting a malicious code infect their computer.

“The ultimate aim is to gain access to sensitive data or internal systems by targeting specific individuals or companies,” the report said.

Previously, hackers in China had been able to camouflage themselves behind servers in Taiwan.

The findings show China was the source of 28.2 percent of global targeted attacks.

It was followed by Romania, with 21.1 percent, presumed to be mostly attempts at commercial fraud.

The United States came third, followed by Taiwan and then Britain, with 12 percent of attacks. (ANI)