(Yicai Global) April 21 -- Chinese antivirus software giant Qihoo 360 Technology plans to acquire online office software developer Hangzhou Yifangyun Network Technology for an undisclosed sum to provide a safer working environment for the growing number of firms operating remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Together, they will develop a corporate security system to protect the whole process of file production, storage, access, transmission and collaboration, Beijing-based Qihoo said today. Hangzhou-based Yifangyun will continue to run independently after the acquisition, it added.

As the Covid-19 pandemic forces many employees to work from home, data security is becoming of increasing importance to users and regulators, Virginia Liu, vice president of Shanghai-based real-time communications software developer Agora.io, told Yicai Global.

The booming online office market is leading to many corporate information security issues, she said. The hugely popular video conferencing platform Zoom, for instance, has been plagued by privacy and security problems. Last week the California-based firm was forced to hire dozens of external security consultants to quickly resolve an incident where many private videos were being uploaded to public web pages.

In the face of the constant threat of cyber attacks and to prevent the leakage of information during transmission and while in storage, companies need to constantly upgrade their online office software and technical capabilities, she added.

Covid-19 will greatly boost the online office industry, attracting more companies and intensifying competition, Liu said.

Yifangyun provides companies with centralized storage and management services for office documents, multi-level user rights control and data security. Set up in 2013, it has raised almost USD25 million through four rounds of financing, including USD10 million from e-commerce giant JD.com.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Kim Taylor