Ranking of Southeast Asia countries in local cyber-threats in 2018 and 2019 (Source: Kaspersky)

With 40 percent of users almost infected by web-borne threats last year, Vietnam ranked 17th worldwide in the dangers associated with surfing. Singapore has the lowest number of web threats with nearly 4.7 million which is in 156th place globally, it said.

Kaspersky’s latest data shows that the number of local threats in Vietnam for 2019 has dropped 10 percent compared to 2018, which puts it in sixth place worldwide, a significant drop from its second place in 2018.

According to the cyber-security company Kaspersky, the top five attack vectors of web threats in Southeast Asia are malware in web traffic, which is found during browsing scenarios when user visits infect sites or online-advertisement performs unfair actions; unintentional downloads of certain programmes (or files) from the Internet; downloading of malicious attachments from online e-mail services; browser extensions activity; and downloads of malicious components or communications with control and command, performed by other malware.

Data from KSN also indicated that threat sources in Vietnam went down to 2.68 million incidents last year from 5.3 million incidents in 2018. This ranks Vietnam in 30th place worldwide compared to Indonesia (32nd), the Philippines (37th), Thailand (38th), Malaysia (40th), and Singapore (10th).

Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky, said: “Last year Vietnam saw significant improvements in its cybersecurity landscape. We have to commend the active efforts exerted by the Government, which definitely increased awareness of the public and required businesses to beef up their defences.

“While it is undoubtedly a success for everyone in Vietnam, we should still keep our guard up as cybercriminals will surely try to earn and infect as much as they can.”

He said with the process of digitisation taking place in many businesses, the awareness of the importance of cybersecurity in 2020 is going to increase, both for individuals and organisations. Alongside the technological advancements such as the implementation of 5G and Industry 4.0, attacks will be more complex and damaging.

“Enterprises and organisations in Vietnam should pay more attention to the importance of threat intelligence for all industries, which can help further boost their defences against sophisticated cyber-attacks,” he added./.

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