A student uses a laptop on the street outside the Hong Kong Government Complex on Oct. 29, 2014, in Hong Kong. (Photo : Getty Images)
The recent deaths of two young people victimized by telecom fraudsters have been a key talking point for computer experts at China's Cybersecurity Week, with a senior government official urging Internet service providers to fight harder against telecom scams.
Although warning users is important, it is also crucial that there are more technical safeguards "as they can better combat online crimes, including telecom fraud and theft of privacy," said Liu Yunshan, deputy head of the Central Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group.
Liu made his remarks at the opening ceremony for the event, organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the government's top Internet watchdog, in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei Province.
Liu, who is also a member of the Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, encouraged tech companies to be more innovative and brainstorm, adding that the government will provide support and "govern the web by rule of law."
Zhou Hongyi, chairman of Qihoo 360, China's largest security software provider, said nobody wants a repeat of the two tragic deaths "so it is urgent to take more action."
In August, two young adults from Linyi, Shandong Province, died after being scammed, causing an outpouring of sympathy and outrage from Chinese citizens.
18-year old Xu Yuyu, an incoming college freshman, died of a heart attack after she was cheated out of a 9,900 yuan ($1,490) in a call. According to local media reports, the money she lost was from her financially-strapped family to pay for her tuition.
Song Zhenning, a college student, died from cardiac arrest five days after being swindled out of 2,000 yuan.
Crackdowns and measures taken against telecom fraud have been the topic of heat discussion during the event, which ends on Saturday.
"We've developed several applications to protect the security of mobile networks, and the most popular one helps users block telecom scams," Zhou said.
In August alone, Qihoo's web security app helped users block 3.43 billion crank calls, of which 445 million were verified telecom frauds, Zhou said.
Guo Xunping, CEO of iJIAMI, a mobile security firm, said greater technical skills are needed to combat phone and text scams.
"Many applications against telecom scams now rely on mobile phone users' reports. When a phone number is labeled as a scam, the applications will put it in its blacklist and block it from calling others," he said. "After all, technology cannot distinguish a scam among a huge quantity of numbers by itself.
"We should specify and upgrade our technical skills to protect mobile security," Guo added, noting that knowing "how to balance security and network convenience also needs to be taken into consideration."
