VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam ranks 11th globally in terms of cyberattack threats such as malware spreading, intentional attacks and data theft. 


Colonel Vo Tuan Dung, Deputy Director of the High-tech Crime Prevention Agency, said at Security World 2016, an event held on March 29 that Vietnam has been warned it may be one of the hot spots for high-tech crimes.

The expert cited a report of Symantec, a security firm, as saying that Vietnam now ranks 11th  in cyber attack threats. Hackers may carry out intentional attacks, spread malware, viruses and steal information, targeting Vietnamese businesses and organizations.

VNCERT (the Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Teams) said in 2015, it recognized 5,898 phishing cases, 8,850 defacing cases and 16,837 malware cases, an increase of 1.7 times over the year before.

Vietnam ranks 11th globally in terms of cyberattack threats such as malware spreading, intentional attacks and data theft.

It gave warnings and helped fix 3,885 incidents, including 87 incidents relating to the ‘gov.vn’ domain name. Malware were mostly hidden links embedded in websites performing unwanted actions.

VNCERT found 1,451,997 IP addresses throughout the country which were affected by malware and by Botnet, an increase of 1.6 times over the year before. It gave warnings to 3,779 IP addresses belonging to state agencies, sent alerts to prevent 7,540 C&C server addresses that regulated Botnets, and removed malicious codes at 1.2 million IP addresses in infected machines put under management of ISP enterprises.

VNCERT also joined forces with international Cert to deal with and prevent 200 counterfeit websites which used counterfeit licenses, forged VNN’s, VDC’s webmails and the State Bank of Vietnam’s website.

Ngo Tuan Anh, deputy president of BKAV, the best known security firm in Vietnam, said ransomeware and adware would continue to be popular. The common characteristic of the malware is that they can bring big profits to hackers.

The cyberattacks that use spyware to steal information and DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) tend to be political such as the attacks on Sony Pictures, the US Department of Defense and the German Parliament.

Nguyen Huy Dung, deputy head of the Ministry of Information and Communication’s Information Safety Agency, said he can see high risks from social networks. Hackers tend to exploit the networks to spread malicious software and steal information.

According to IDG and Gartner, the expenditure on information security in the world will increase by 12-15 percent per annum before it exceeds $100 billion by 2020. The biggest spending would be on measures to ensure security for mobile devices.

Recently, Kaspersky Lab warned of a Trojan Triada, a new trojan targeting Android devices, which can be compared with malware on a Windows device in terms of complexity.

Buu Dien