A cybersecurity report by Vnetwork has recorded more than 2 million cyberattacks targeting Vietnam over the past year, with 46% involving artificial intelligence. The findings highlight a growing shift toward identity theft, AI abuse and multi-layered attacks that are placing businesses under increasing pressure and risk of operational disruption.

As Vietnam accelerates its digital transformation, opportunities for growth are expanding alongside vulnerabilities. The rapid expansion of digital infrastructure has widened the attack surface, making sectors such as finance, e-commerce and media prime targets for cybercriminals.

Evolving attack methods

Credential attacks lead the list with 685,912 incidents, accounting for 25.1% of all attacks. Instead of breaking through system defenses, hackers are increasingly exploiting weaker entry points such as user accounts, exposing critical risks in identity and access management.

Web exploits account for 19.9%, primarily targeting fintech platforms and e-commerce systems to steal transaction data. Distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) make up 18.7%, overwhelming systems to weaken response capabilities and mask other intrusions. These methods are often combined into multi-layered attacks, making detection and response more difficult.

In the first six months alone, more than 256,000 DDoS attacks were recorded, indicating a clear upward trend. This suggests that DDoS is no longer a temporary disruption risk, but a persistent threat to business continuity.

Bot abuse (15.6%) and phishing (13.1%) reflect increasing levels of automation. While malware appears less frequently, it plays a crucial role in maintaining long-term access after initial breaches. Another rapidly growing threat is SEO poisoning, where malicious backlinks related to gambling and betting are injected to damage reputation and search rankings.

Nearly half of attacks bear AI fingerprints

Real-world data points to a critical warning: more than 1.09 million attacks involved the misuse of AI.

Attackers are using AI to automate reconnaissance at scale, quickly identifying vulnerabilities across systems. AI is also being deployed to generate highly personalized phishing campaigns, making fraudulent emails significantly harder to detect.

Malware is increasingly integrated with AI to dynamically alter its code and evade detection systems. At the same time, AI is being used to coordinate botnets capable of adapting in real time, leading to severe consequences such as service disruption, data breaches and financial losses.

Bot traffic: a silent threat

Alongside AI, the surge in bot activity is reshaping the nature of the Internet. Bots now account for a dominant share of total traffic, with a significant portion classified as malicious.

These bots operate continuously, capable of executing millions of requests per minute, from scanning for vulnerabilities and launching automated login attempts to scraping data. Their scale and distributed nature allow them to exert pressure on systems while concealing real attack behavior.

Email: an old front, new risks

In 2025, more than 4.6 million malicious emails were blocked, with phishing accounting for 69.1%.

More sophisticated variants such as QR phishing, impersonation via legitimate cloud platforms and AI-generated content are making detection increasingly difficult. When combined with malware attachments or business email compromise (BEC), email becomes the entry point for complex attack chains that can cause significant financial and reputational damage.

What businesses must do now

Nguyen Van Tao, Chairman of Vnetwork, emphasized: “With cyberattacks reaching 2.36 million incidents annually and traffic surging to terabit levels, cybersecurity is no longer a supporting layer but a core business capability. In the digital era, those who control risk hold a decisive competitive advantage. We must proactively establish a defensive posture today, because standing still means removing ourselves from a race where attackers are accelerating by the hour.”

Drawing on real-time monitoring data and in-depth analysis, Vnetwork’s report provides a comprehensive view of Vietnam’s cybersecurity landscape. By translating vulnerabilities and attack vectors into actionable insights, it encourages businesses to shift from reactive responses to proactive prevention.

This approach offers a scientific foundation for leaders to optimize security budgets while enabling IT teams to prioritize threats with greater precision.

Source: Vnetwork