Speaking at the Vietnam Information Security Day 2020 event on December 2, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said the mission of cybersecurity is to protect Vietnam’s sovereignty and prosperity in cyberspace.

The mission of cybersecurity is to protect Vietnam’s sovereignty and prosperity in cyberspace

According to Hung, digital trust will be the decisive factor for the move from the real to virtual world. Many countries have stated that they will only buy open technologies, especially if they are used to build key national infrastructure.

Vietnam has developed 5G technology based on Open RAN standards, and its 5G network will also use open source. This will be a favorable factor for Vietnam cybersecurity firms.

Cybersecurity firms need to cooperate closely with ICT product and service development companies so that the products and services, and the ICT system, can be secured at the highest level.

It is necessary to build a contingency of cybersecurity experts. In addition to excellent firms and tools, there must be talented individuals. Tools can only fix discovered holes, while undiscovered holes can only be solved by experts.

He said that the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) encourages cybersecurity firms to have new approaches in both technology and marketing to popularize cybersecurity products and services to everyone.

Nguyen Thanh Hung, chair of the Vietnam Information Security Assciation (VNISA), said Vietnamese firms at the workshop have conveyed the message that Make in Vietnam products, services and solutions are ready to ensure cybersecurity for the national digital transformation process.

Big investments in cybersecurity

Nguyen Son Hai from Viettel pointed out that information security is a risk that agencies and organizations have to face during digital transformation.

A report found that in 2017, 5.1 Petabytes of big data were revealed. In 2019, a British energy firm was scammed for $243,000. In 2020, information about 500,000 Zoom accounts were put up for online sale.

In Vietnam, 3 million DDoS attacks were recorded by Viettel in the last year. As many as 156 organizations and 306 government offices were attacked. There were four phishing attacks targeting banks with 26,000 banking service users affected.

According to McKinsey, businesses and governmental organizations around the world are making big investments in information security. The global cybersecurity market had estimated value of $168 billion in 2019.

Though budgets have decreased because of Covid-19, many agencies and organizations have kept investments on information security unchanged. The pandemic has prompted many businesses to shift to working online. Covid-19 has created strong dynamics and promoted the cybersecurity market.

The cybersecurity market scale is predicted to soar to $215 billion just in the next two years.

CMC Group believes that technological solutions on networking security, 5G and internal network security, as well as the ones on automation, will receive the most investment. The protection of users’ identity is also becoming more important.

Vietnam to have cybersecurity autonomy

Nguyen Thanh Phuc, director of the Authority for Information Security (AIS), stressed that technological autonomy in cybersecurity products, solutions and products will be a radical solution to ensure cybersecurity.

Developing Vietnam’s cybersecurity ecosystem is the premise for the development of the cybersecurity industry.

The proportion of information security products made here has been increasing rapidly in the last five years. In 2015, Vietnam only had 5 percent of domestically made products, but the figure is now 91 percent and will be 100 percent in 2021.

The revenue from domestic cybersecurity products compared with foreign products has increased from 18 percent in 2015 to 39 percent in 2019, while it is expected to reach 45 percent by the end of the year.

The proportion of information security products made here has been increasing rapidly in the last five years. In 2015, Vietnam only had 5 percent of domestically made products, but the figure is now 91 percent and will be 100 percent in 2021.

Cybersecurity products and services are predicted to bring VND1.9 trillion in revenue this year.

Building a powerful cybersecurity industry

Developing and mastering Vietnam’s ecosystem of cybersecurity products that serve e-government, smart cities and important national information systems is one of the tasks assigned by the government to MIC. The ministry has many times affirmed that cybersecurity is the prerequisite condition for e-government development and digital transformation.

AIS has set a goal that the value of the cybersecurity market will increase by 30 percent in 2021 compared with 2020.

“The fact that revenue from information security has increased by more than 50 percent shows the strong development of the cybersecurity product ecosystem,” AIS commented.

In 2019, the investments in information security accounted for 5 percent of investments in IT. MIC is trying to increase the figure to 10 percent this year. Meanwhile, AIS said spending on cybersecurity in 2021 would be 3-4 times higher than 2020.

The head of the agency said it will build a system to assess and inspect information security in accordance with international standards. It will assess 300-500 information security versions in 2021-2025.

This is expected to help shorten the time for assessment, thus saving money for cybersecurity firms. 

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