VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam's leading internet security firm, BKAV, is calling for concerted efforts to fight with online attacks to Vietnamese websites.

New DDoS attacks launched, targeting online newspapers

C&C servers conducting DDoS attacks to online newspapers found

An internet subscriber accesses online services. Vietnamese internet security organisations have called for co-ordination in the fight against online attacks.

In the past fortnight, several Vietnamese online newspapers have been denied distribution services after attacks known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS).

This has meant that readers have not been able to access vietnamnet.vn, dantri.com.vn and tuoitre.vn newspapers.

BKAV's director of network security, Nguyen Minh Duc, said during one of the attacks, hackers controlled a large number of computers to access a website at the same time, causing the network bandwidth to overload.

"Solving this problem quickly or over time depends on individual computer systems. On average, a website can transfer 1GB data per one second," Duc said.

"However, when a site is attacked, this capacity can reach up to 10GB data per second, which simply overloads the system."

Duc said affected newspapers did not seem aware of the need for technical support from outside.

Duc said both Viet Nam's Computer Emergency Response Teams (VNCERT) and BKAV had not received any requests for help from the newspapers so far.

"Even when VNCERT contacted them on July 8 saying that the centre was willing to give them a hand, they said that they had not been affected by DDoS attacks." he added.

Duc said VNCERT could search for viruses and find out where they were coming from.

"However, they can only can do this when the websites that are being attacked report these incidents to VNCERT," he said.

South Korea has set up a centre to handle DDoS attacks on state agencies. The centre has numerous servers and a very large bandwidth infrastructure.

When websites are attacked, the attack details are transferred to the DDoS handling centre, which identifies IP addresses and the resistance of the DDoS.

Agencies fall behind on IT security

More than half of local agencies, organisations and enterprises do not have their own information security staff.

Another 24 per cent have to hire professional service providers to enhance information security.

A report produced by the Viet Nam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT) unveiled high demand for information security training in Viet Nam.

According to a survey, more than 83 per cent of State agencies want information-security training. Sixty per cent said information security personnel must possesses professional certificates.

VNCERT is joining hands with the Viet Nam Information Security Association (VNISA) to map out a framework for information security training.

The curriculum has been designed in such a way that trainees can accumulate course credits and acquire related international certificates.

In March, the Post and Telecom Institute of Technology (PTIT), became the first educational institution in Viet Nam to have an information security faculty.

It will be used to help Viet Nam to cope with emerging threats from international hackers.

This year, 150 students will be enrolled in the new faculty, most of them high school and college graduates.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, Viet Nam will need about 1 million IT experts by 2020.

Source: VNS