Nguyen Van Than, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (VINASME), said up to 70% of Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are outside the digital economy, and only about 20% are learning about it.

RMIT University, the Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA) and VINASME recently held a workshop on "Information Security Awareness for Small and Medium Enterprises in Vietnam".

The event brought together important partners from Vietnam and Australia to share experiences and research results on information security awareness of businesses in the two countries, as well as announce the launch of a survey with Vietnamese enterprises about the level of readiness for information security.

At the workshop, VINASME Chairman Nguyen Van Than said: “The awareness of the digital economy and the actions of businesses is still relatively slow, uneven and inconsistent. Therefore, it is very necessary and urgent to popularize and support Vietnamese businesses to participate in the digital economy. This is a mission of survival.”

In a presentation on the overview of the cybersecurity situation in Vietnam in 2021 and forecast for 2022, Mr. Ngo Tuan Anh, Director of the Institute of Information Security Technology under the Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA), said that Vietnam has 70.7 million computers infected with viruses in 2021.

He said that the damage caused by computer viruses to Vietnamese users last year continued to be very high - about 1.06 billion USD. The use of computers and smart devices in Vietnam has increased dramatically due to the influence of Covid-19, which is an ideal environment for the virus to break out and spread rapidly.

The VNISA representative also said that supply chain attacks have become a global trend. Most of the attacks that occurred in the past year were large-scale, targeting reputable organizations and businesses around the globe.

Experts all said that amid digital transformation, small and medium enterprises in Vietnam should aim to improve infrastructure, capacity and a culture of information security in the cyberspace.

An upcoming nationwide survey jointly conducted by RMIT University, VNISA and VINASME is expected to consider issues such as risks in cyberspace, capacity to adapt to technology, recognition of information security, skills to prevent and confront cyber threats, and funding for information security activities.

The survey is expected to contribute to building a better cybersecurity infrastructure, capacity and culture in the SME community.

At the event, RMIT's Center for Information Security Research and Innovation (CCSRI) announced the establishment of a branch in Vietnam led by Dr. Pham Cong Hiep, a senior lecturer at RMIT University.

Van Anh

Challenges for businesses’ digital transformation

Data governance capacity, access to capital, information, and a search for experts are major barriers to Vietnam's digital transformation, besides the high costs.

Vietnam should redefine scope and scale of the digital economy

The current method of calculating the scale of the digital economy only reaches the core, while digital transformation is spreading strongly into many industries and fields.