VietNamNet Bridge – On the night of July 3, 2011, nearly 200 websites with the domain names “.vn”, “.com” and “.net” on the same server were attacked. The websites included the one of the Binh Duong provincial Finance Department.
June 2011 was considered the “hottest month” for the Internet security community with a record high number of attacks to the websites in Vietnam. Agencies and enterprises have been warned about their inappropriate attention to the Internet security. However, the situation has not changed much, as nearly 200 websites with domain names “.vn”, “.com” and “.net” on the same server were attacked were attacked just within a night.

Zone-H, the website which regularly names attack cases, two of the attacks were carried out by a group of hackers called “md. l07hdh”. After the attacks, the group left the worlds “hacked by md. l07hdh - musuh kita adalah nafsu, munafik dan kafir”.

The noteworthy thing is that among the lately attacked websites, there were the ones managed by the Binh Duong provincial Finance Department  (sotaichinhbinhduong.gov.vn) and an education website of the Thach That district in Hanoi at thachthat.edu.vn.

Also according to Zone-H, the server system of the 200 websites hacked by md. l07hdh ran on Linux operation system.

When checking on http://dedicatedornot.com/, experts have found out that the websites attacked on July 3 were located on the same server owned by a well- known hosting and domain service provider in Vietnam.

Prior to that, on June 6, a group of hackers called CmTr also exploited a hole on server and conducted the attacks to over 200 Vietnamese websites.

On June 27, at the workshop on network security and security solutions organized by Bach Khoa – Npower, Nguyen Hoai Duy, a CCIE network security, a high ranking lecturer of Bach Khoa – Npower, presented a website attack which hijacked the server run on Linux operation system and Windows server with SQL Injection within just 10 minutes.

It seems that after June, hosting and server administrations have not learned the lessons and taken necessary measures to increase the protection level. As a result, holes have existed for hackers to exploit.

Website attacks and Internet security have become a hot topic these days, after a large number of websites, including the ones run by state management agencies, were attacked recently.

In the latest move, the Ministry of Public Security has proposed the Prime Minister to establish the High Command of Information Security and Internet Security in order to help ensure information security for Communist Party and the State’s agencies.

The reports released by international experts show that about 20 countries in the world have the capability to develop network war, while 10 of them are ready to do this.

In order to ensure the Internet security and information safety of the Communist Party and the State, experts say, it is necessary to have an institution powerful enough, or a taskforce agency specializing in dealing with Internet attacks. They have stressed that if Vietnam cannot ensure the e-information security, it will not be able to build up an e-government.

In fact, realizing the importance of the information security, the Ministry of Public Security has set up some relating agencies, including the Information Technology Department, Department of Prevention of high-tech crime, the National Cyber Security, and the Information Security Agency.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Nguyen Minh Hong has revealed that his ministry has proposed to establish the Information Safety Agency. The agency, once established, will have a bigger role in Internet security coordinating than the Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team

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