VietNamNet Bridge – The number of Vietnamese websites attacked by Chinese hackers has subsided in the last few days, as Chinese are now being forced to deal cyber-attacks from the Philippines.

BKAV and SecurityDaily, the two best-known internet security firms, have both confirmed that the number of Vietnamese websites hacked by Chinese in recent days had fallen slightly, as compared with mid-May.

SecurityDaily on May 21 said 25 Vietnamese websites were hacked on May 19-21. The hackers claimed they were from China, but not members of 1937cn, the main culprit in the attacks on 200 Vietnamese websites on May 10-11. The 1937cn is a group of hackers which has incited Chinese hackers (through messages on its websites) to attack Vietnamese websites.

Ngo Tuan Anh, vice president of BKAV, confirmed that the situation has become “less tense”. BKAV’s findings showed that about 20 Vietnamese websites were being hacked every day, the same number seen in the period from the beginning of the year to May.

By contrast, during the peak period in mid-May, 30 websites were attacked by Chinese hackers every day.

In one special case, hundreds of websites with the same “hole” were attacked automatically at the same time by 1937cn.

The drop in Chinese attacks on Vietnamese websites in recent days is attributed to the increasing number of attacks from Filipino hackers on Chinese websites.

An analyst cited foreign sources as saying that some Filipino groups of hackers, named Anonymous Philippines, Panay Hacker, Panay Island Cyber Army and Phantom Hacker PH, have attacked some 200 Chinese websites.

The attacks carried out on May 20 targeted the websites of private Chinese enterprises and Chinese government agencies. The hackers left the message that the attacks were carried out in response to China’s illegal actions.

After hijacking the Chinese websites, the Filipino hackers replaced images of the Chinese national flag with ones from the hackers’ websites.

Hacker Anonymous Philippines left a message that it would not forgive the Chinese acts of aggression and unjustified claims about their sovereignty in the East Sea.

The websites hacked by Filipino groups reportedly included those of local administrative agencies, such as the foreign affairs department of Liao Cheng City in Shandong Province, and the management committee of an "eco-city" in Shu Gang in Yangzhou Province. The hackers also attacked websites of fashion, footwear and computer online trading companies.

Even though the number of Vietnamese websites hacked has fallen recently, internet security solution providers still believe that agencies and businesses must take all necessary measures to protect themselves from attack.

Anh from BKAV said that agencies and security firms had repeatedly warned about the Chinese attacks in the last few days, but many hacked websites had still not fixed their problems.

A representative of the Vietnam Computing Emergency Response Team noted that many hacked websites have the same IP address. Thus, ISPs (Internet Service Provider) could help prevent hacking attacks by sending warnings to the websites’ administrators to help them minimize their risks.

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