(Yicai) Aug. 15 -- The security department of Tencent Holdings’ social networking platform QQ has refuted a rumor claiming that a hacker had accessed huge amounts of its user data, The Paper reported yesterday.

People on the dark side of cyberspace used old information to make up this story, misleading the public, the report said.

A hacker claimed to have stolen billions of pieces of user information, including email addresses, QQ IDs and phone numbers, amounting to hundreds of gigabits of data, according to a screenshot circulating online.

The same false claims have been released by overseas hackers several times in the past few years, with some variations such as inflating the size of the data leak, and these are then maliciously posted on the Chinese internet, QQ Security Center said.

Cybersecurity has become an important issue, with large-scale data leaks occasionally occurring. When releasing open source data, US tech giant Microsoft’s artificial intelligence research team accidentally leaked 38 terabytes of private data, including over 30,000 pieces of employee information, a cybersecurity report disclosed on Sept. 18 last year.

China’s Ministry of Public Security has been hard at work ensuring online security. The watchdog said it had detected 2,430 cases of hacking from 2022 to Nov. 30 last year and arrested 7,092 suspects. The ministry remains committed to intercepting hacking activities and maintaining law and order in cyberspace.

Editor: Kim Taylor