China has to further open its IT security market to introduce into international advanced technologies and integrate into the global Internet security platform, said Mr. Jerry Ungerman in Shanghai, President of world's leading Internet security solution provider Check Point Software Technologies.

He reiterated the fact that the online security has drawn on concerns of the whole world with the spread of Internet. He noted that China needs the support of web security technologies to back up the growth of its economy which plays an increasing significant role in the world economy.

He recognized China's progress on the development of web security technologies and products and its head start over Indian enterprises. China's WTO membership will, he believes, bring more and more foreign web security technologies and products into the country.

Mr. Ungerman thinks the small and medium sized enterprises are the most vulnerable to attacks of hackers and virus because of the lack of resources and expertise.

Even in US where the virtual world is guarded better than any other places, only 35 percent of its small and medium sized businesses are equipped with fire walls. In China the situation is even worse.

Ungerman sees promising prospect of IT security market, particularly in Asia. And the powerhouse for the market here in Asia, he said, is China and India.

He expects that in the next five years, the IT security market in Asia would grow 22 percent, twice as much as the growth of the total IT service market and much higher than that in North America, 13 percent, and in Europe, 16 percent on average.

The Internet runs under a complex threat of security. Computer virus can contaminate the whole virtual world in hours. A survey shows that web worms and virus caused more than 12 billion USD damage to the world economy in 2003.