Authorities pledged on Friday to step up efforts to protect the country's cybersecurity in order to safeguard stable economic and social operations and the interests of the people.

Notable progress has been made in maintaining cyberspace security and order over the past year, said Li Guozhong, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security.

Amid a national operation targeting prominent cybercrimes and network disruptions last year, police nationwide investigated 62,000 cases and arrested 103,000 suspects, up 10.7 percent and 28.7 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Friday marked the seventh National Security Education Day, with the theme this year being strengthening the concept of a holistic approach to national security, which was first put forward in April 2014, and includes 16 main areas such as the security of the homeland, politics, economy, culture and ecology.

Ensuring cybersecurity is a significant component of national security. President Xi Jinping has mentioned on several occasions that there can be no national security without cybersecurity.

When addressing a central conference on law-based governance in November 2020 in Beijing, Xi said that cybercrime has become one of the top risks endangering China's national political security, network security, social security and economic security.

In recent years, with the rapid development of information technology, the crime structure has undergone significant changes. Traditional crimes continue to decline. New types of cybercrimes such as telecom network fraud have become mainstream and present severe challenges to public security organs, according to the ministry.

China has also formulated a series of laws to protect cybersecurity, offering sound legal support for fighting such crimes, Li said.

Last year, police investigated about 9,800 cases of infringements of personal information, and detained 3,309 people who allegedly carried out hacking attacks or took part in money laundering activities. A total of 341 groups were uncovered that produced and sold Trojan horse programs or developed malicious software. This helped more effectively ensure the sound development of the digital economy and cyberspace security, Li said.

Police have also imposed administrative punishments on some 27,000 internet enterprises, investigated 134 online games involving gambling and obscene content and cleaned up about 1 million pieces of harmful information.

Judicial organs have continuously taken measures targeting all aspects of cybercrimes and exercised prompt and comprehensive governance. Offenses such as supporting network crimes, infringing upon citizen's personal information and illegal use of information networks have been highlighted, said Cheng Lei, an official with the Supreme People's Procuratorate.