This emergency plan comes when the country is facing increased geopolitical tensions with the United States and its allies and follows an incident last year where a threat actor claimed to have gained access to a massive amount of personal data belonging to over a billion Chinese individuals from the Shanghai police.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released a detailed document outlining the procedures that local governments and businesses should follow in evaluating and handling issues of data leaks.
The plan, which is currently seeking public input, suggests a four-tiered, colour-coded system based on the extent of harm done to the economy, a company’s online and information network, or the running of the economy.
As per the plan, data breach incidents that involve losses worth a billion yuan ($141 million) or more, and affect the "sensitive" information of over 10 million people will be classified as "especially grave". These will be incidents that must issue a red warning, according to the plan.
MIIT released a 25-page document, where it classified all instances of data being unlawfully accessed, leaked, destroyed, or altered into four hierarchical tiers, based on the extent and severity of the harm inflicted. The classification is as follows:
- Red (“especially significant”): This level signifies that the disturbance and shutdown of operations lasted for more than 24 hours, with economic loss of more than 1 billion yuan, or the personal data of more than 100 million people being compromised, or sensitive data of more than 10 million people.
- Orange (“significant”): This suggests that the interruption lasted for more than 12 hours, with a financial loss between 100 million and 1 billion, or the compromise of personal data of over 10 million people, or sensitive data of more than 1 million people.
- Yellow (“Yellow”): It implies that the interference lasted for more than 8 hours, with an economic loss ranging between 50 million yuan and 100 million yuan, or affected the personal information of over 1 million people, or sensitive data of more than 100,000 people.
- Blue (“General”): Incidents involved in this category are comparatively minor, with interruption lasting less than eight hours, with financial compromise of less than 50 million yuan, or affected personal data of less than 1 million people, or sensitive data of less than 100,000 people.
The plan stipulates, among other things, that in the event of red or orange warnings, the concerned companies and the local regulatory authorities shall set up a 24-hour work schedule to handle the situation and notify MIIT of the data breach within 10 minutes of the incident occurring.
A statement by MIIT reads, "If the incident is judged to be grave... it should be immediately reported to the local industry regulatory department, no late reporting, false reporting, concealment or omission of reporting is allowed.”
