Better laws, tech are key to battle cyber terrorism: Experts

Improved legislation and technology innovation in accordance with the changing face of cyber terrorism are key to ridding online social media of terrorists and their nefarious information, experts said at the 4th World Internet Conference on Monday.

Terrorist organizations spread harmful information on social media in new ways, as well as promote online recruitment and training, said Wang Yong, vice-president at the People's Public Security University of China.

"They hire high-level hackers to make their online attacks more difficult to be detected by the government and raise funds though digital currency," he added.

Mei Jianming, chief expert of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization International judicial exchange cooperation training base for anti-terrorism, agreed. Terrorists block investigations with new technology to keep them being active on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, he said.

"Terrorists can post a video link from cloud storage to a password-protected social media chat room without leaving physical evidence, which poses a bigger challenge to the cybersecurity of China," Mei added.

Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center show that, as of June, China had 751 million internet users.

"As a country with the largest population of internet users and highly developed mobile and fixed network facilities, netizens should be constantly vigilant and on guard against terror-related information," said Zhang Jinping, vice-dean of counter-terrorism department at the Northwest University of Political Science and Law.

Terrorist recruitment and propaganda lie in internet users' receiving their information. The more people that receive their information, the bigger influences they make on others. So the anti-cyberterrorism campaign should focus on netizens' receiving counterterrorism information, Zhang added.

Ufuk Ayhan, vice-president of the Turkish National Police Academy, said, "Exchanges of experts and professionals from Turkey and China should be constantly arranged in order to strengthen the global cooperation to combat cyber terrorism."

Although the two countries have different situations regarding combating cyber-terrorism, the advanced technologies can be shared to maximize counterterrorism ability, he said.