A key disease control center in Japan in the fight against the novel coronavirus experienced a huge surge in cyberattacks in 2020, with the figure quadrupling to around 5.3 million from around 1.2 million in 2019 before the outbreak of the pandemic, center officials told Kyodo News on Friday.

The National Center for Global Health and Medicine said the attacks, with many originating in China and Russia, did not lead to the leak of confidential research or personal information due to robust cybersecurity measures.

The monthly average of attacks in 2019 was around 100,000 but leapt to some 440,000 cases in 2020, according to Kengo Miyo, the head of the center's medical informatics intelligence.