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Sharp rise in online sabotage

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Domestic networks facing serious threat from overseas, specialist says.

Online attacks on domestic networks, originating from IP addresses and servers in other countries and regions, have grown sharply this year, according to a government specialist who warns that Internet security faces increasing threats.

About 7.8 million computers were affected in 27,900 attacks, originating in other countries and regions, between January and June, according to the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team.

The United States hosted many of the overseas command and control servers used in the attacks (24.2 percent), followed by Japan (17.2 percent) and South Korea (11.4 percent), the team reported.

"Online attacks against our country are coming from outside our borders and the situation is growing more serious," said Zhou Yonglin, the team's administration and operation director, in an exclusive interview.

The number of computers affected so far this year almost equals the number caused by 47,000 attacks in 2011.

Hackers use IP addresses and servers overseas to infect networks with Trojan viruses and create Botnets, collections of compromised devices, Zhou said.

Authorities went on red alert in April when Anonymous, an international group of "hacktivists", said it planned to destroy 46 websites run by enterprises, including five in China.

That same month, hackers from the Philippines defaced several Chinese websites and left insulting messages amid a dispute between Beijing and Manila over Huangyan Island.