China's Ministry Of Industry And Information Technology Plans To Increase Data Security In The Industrial Sector

Illustration of cyber army (photo: freepic)

JAKARTA - China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) revealed a plan on Monday 26 February, which aims to improve data security in China's industrial sector. They want to effectively control the "big risk" until the end of 2026.

The plan comes at a time when China and the United States often accuse each other of cyberattacks and industrial espionage.

Reuters reported last year that Chinese government entities and state-owned companies were accelerating efforts to replace Western-made hardware and software with domestic alternatives, in part for fear of hacking from foreign opponents.

"In response to frequent risk scenarios such as ransomware attacks, vulnerability backdoors, illegal operations by personnel, and uncontrolled remote operations and maintenance, we will strengthen self-risk checks and self-improvement, and adopt proper management and protection measures," according to the plan. published on the MIIT website.

Protection measures, including emergency drills simulate ransomware attacks, should be applied to more than 45,000 companies in China's industrial sector by the end of 2026, covering at least the top 10% in terms of revenue in each province of China.

The plan also aims to complete 30,000 data security training sessions and foster 5,000 data security "tents" within the same time.

China in the last three years has strengthened regulations on how its companies store and transfer user data, citing national security reasons. Regulators imposed fines of US$1.2 billion (Rp18.7 trillion) to ride-vehicle service giant Didi in July 2022 for data security breaches.

The Ministry of State Security warned in December that foreign geographic information software was used to collect sensitive data in key sectors including the military. In the same month, MIIT proposed a four-tier classification system to help respond to data security incidents.