In its inaugural survey on Internet information security and computer viruses, released September 14, the Ministry of Public Security has found that 36% of computer security incidents are caused by massive spam transmission.

Virus-related information was collected from a total of 7,072 departments, including those in government, finance, education and research, telecommunications, and commerce. In addition, over 8,400 computer users were covered in the survey which was launched by the Bureau Public Information and Internet Security Supervision under the Ministry of Public Security and the Professional Committee of Computer Security of the China Computer Federation.

The survey shows that there is an 87.9% infection rate from viruses, 2% up from 2003. The most widespread computer viruses are Internet worms and those viruses or codes targeting Internet-browsing software: Worm.Sasser, Worm.NetSky, Worm.Nimda and Digispid.B.Worm. 58% of the departments surveyed have had incidents with online security, 36% of which were caused by the massive transmission of spam.

Analysis of the results has determined that the main causes of these problems were poor implementation of regulations, low security awareness, ill-trained management staff in security, and the lack of an effective channel for security information reporting.