Simultaneous with the recent incident of US military plane bumping and destroying a Chinese fighter jet, US hackers also launched attacks on Chinese websites. Chinese hackers beat back. In view of this, experts of information security group of the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out that domestic websites should quickly check their own websites against any loopholes in order to avoid invasion by hackers.

"According to related statistics, there are 40 to 50 hacking cases taking place every day in Chinese and American websites. The figure was only 1 to 2 before the plane collision incident," said the information security experts.

In the opinion of the experts, "Netizens become hackers when they decide to choose a way to vent their indignation much more easily and directly in the virtual world. To beat back the attacks by American hackers is only a means used by the netizens to express their indignation".

"Currently, hackers of the two countries mainly choose to intrude into the system or alter the content of some weak websites," the experts said, "therefore, we suggest that domestic Internet users examine their website by using hidden-trouble scanners and removing all the loopholes ever found. It is the most effective precaution means in the short term." Besides, information security experts of the CAS remind the netizens of the need to enhance the awareness of security precaution.

(People's Daily 04/27/2001)