New Cybersecurity Pilot Projects Underway

On January 13th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced 49 cybersecurity pilot projects in the Telecoms and Internet sectors for 2017, which will serve as the models for cybersecurity related projects. Those pilot projects, recommended by provincial level, autonomous region level and municipal level telecom administration bureaus, are mainly from the big telecoms companies, internet enterprises, and cybersecurity related enterprises. The primary focus is on network security situation awareness, cloud monitoring and cloud protection, early warning management systems for mobile, compliance testing platforms for data masking, domain name security situation awareness, industrial Internet security situation awareness, and other security systems for big data, Internet governance, and telecom fraud.

MIIT calls for stronger support and management over the selected pilot programs, increased investment and enhanced cybersecurity technology building, and offers a best-practice sharing platform amongst pilot programs. 
 
MIIT's effort in strengthening cybersecurity in telecoms and Internet sectors echoes CAC's initiative to conduct nationwide cybersecurity inspection of CII in key sectors launched in July 2016. Telecoms and Internet are consistently included in the evolving definition of CII, and the announcement of 49 pilot projects to the public is the first among all sectors.