That was stated at the 13th Security World conference under the theme "Enhancing data security and safety and security for the financial banking and state management agencies" organised by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in co-ordination with IDG International Data Group in Hanoi.

Addressing the conference, Do Anh Tuan, deputy director of the Department of Cyber Security and Hi-Tech Crime Prevention under the MPS, mentioned the serious consequences of cyber attacks targeting banks around the world.

"The world has witnessed a lot of hacker attacks on the major bank systems of the world, stealing tens of millions of euros and dollars. Many banks and important information systems in Vietnam have also suffered many cyberattacks with great economic losses.”

According to Tuan, methods to steal card information and counterfeiting cards (skimming) are becoming sophisticated in Vietnam. Currently, Vietnam has about 70 million domestic cards which can be targeted by criminals.

“In 2018 and early 2019, many foreigners traveling to Vietnam used fake cards to conduct fraudulent transactions and pay bills/services via point-of-sale (POS) machines, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars,” Tuan said.

“Since the beginning of this year, the MPS has arrested more than 120 foreigners for this crime,” he added.

Besides, he also said that many groups organise online gambling via bank accounts, with millions of dollars changing hands each day.

At the end of April, the police broke up a gambling ring worth more than VND30 trillion ($1.3 billion) and arrested 29 people.

Meanwhile, Hoang Minh Tien, deputy director of the Department of Information Security, Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), said, "The digital transformation of the economy in the field of finance-banking has brought a lot of non-cash payment options on mobile and internet platforms. There are many risks of information security due to increasingly sophisticated hacker attacks, causing increasingly serious economic damage, as well as damaging the reputation of financial and banking institutions."

Tien also said that there are five main trends in cybersecurity in Vietnam in 2019, including attacks on e-commerce and financial-banking systems to steal information and users’ data; attacks on state agencies and organisations; impersonating agencies, organisations, and individuals to spread malicious information on the cyberspace; using artificial intelligence to spread malware; attacking infrastructure or IoT devices.

Talking about preventing attacks on core infrastructure, Le Trong Duong, director of the Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT), a government cybersecurity co-ordination center under the MIC, said that Vietnam is among the top ten countries with the highest incidence of computer zombies and the top three countries attacked by the cloudnet virus the world.

“In the first quarter of 2019, 28 million out of 79 million events of information insecurity discovered by VNCERT were classified as high danger level. The number of highly dangerous events is increasing,” he added.

According to Duong and other experts participating at the conference, to ensure security, besides the elements of technology, and regulations, human resources is very important.

“We should invest in human resources along with co-operating with professional security service providers. Users' awareness and data backup is also a crucial element,” Duong said.

The latest statistics from the State Bank of Vietnam show that there were 26 organisations providing e-wallet services for about 10,000 customers in Vietnam.

By the end of last year, there were 4.2 million e-wallets linked to bank accounts. On average, the whole banking system handled VND300 trillion ($13.04 billion) per day in 2018, up 25 per cent compared to 2017.

Meanwhile, according to the statistics of the National Cyber ​​Security Center under the MIC, in 2018 there were 10,220 cyberattacks on information systems in Vietnam.

Particularly, there were 5,932 phishing attacks; 3,198 interface change attacks; 1,090 attacks installing malicious code.

Particularly in the banking sector and business system connecting with banks, many sophisticated attacks took place, revealing customer data leading to worrying consequences. VIR

Phuong Hao

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