Crackdown targets cyber black market

An estimated 560,000 people were engaged in the industry in first six months of the year

China has experienced an increase in cases of online data leaks in the past few years due to the development of the "cyber black market", according to a report by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Information.

The Annual Report on Development of Cyberspace Security in China, which the institute released on Monday, says that cases relating to information leaks have become more frequent since last year, such as the high-profile case involving Gfan - the country's largest online platform for Android systems - in which data of the platform's more than 23 million users, including their names, passwords and email addresses, were published on the internet.