According to the Chinese security software company Jiangmin, the Green Dam Youth Escort software promoted by the Chinese government that aims to prevent young people from viewing pornographic websites has a security backdoor and hackers can take advantage of the loophole to spread virus.

The company said that the loophole exists in the filtering function of the software. If users open some specially set web pages when the filtering function is active, the loophole will appear in the buffer of the relevant module. Taking advantage of this loophole, hackers can reportedly place trojans on these web pages and spread viruses. Computers attacked by virus will have the risks of serious information leak or remotely controlled by hackers.

So far, about 50 million users have installed the Green Dam software, and many more expected to use the software once it gets bundled with all PC sales in China on July 1. Jiangmin suggested to these users that they should stop using the filtering function of the software until a patch is launched.

Commenting on the security loophole of Green Dam, a representative from Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering, the developer of the software, told local media that security is indeed a weak link for Green Dam and the company will make improvements in later editions.