As Vietnam sets its sights on entering the Top 3 regional leaders in cybersecurity, VietNamNet spoke with Dr. Tran Nghi Phu, Deputy Chief of Office at the People's Security Academy, the "Chief Architect" of the oVnCr project, regarding the ambition to build a national digital platform under a Vietnamese brand.

In the era of Digital Government, information security is considered a vital pillar. However, the paradox is that we still face a severe shortage of high-quality human resources. What is the biggest "loophole" in current training efforts?

Vietnam is lacking hundreds of thousands of high-quality professionals, especially those with hands-on, combat-ready skills. Traditional training models no longer meet current requirements.

The biggest gap lies in the fact that learners spend a long time studying theory but have very limited exposure to real-world problems. They lack opportunities to practice on complex systems that closely resemble real-life situations. Even corporate training programs or drills mostly introduce basic knowledge or one-way demonstrations.

As a result, participants do not directly handle incidents arising on the systems they manage, leading to a lack of experience and resilience in real incident response.

Some major powers such as the US, Israel, and South Korea have their own cyber ranges. Why did Vietnam choose not to buy an available solution but instead decide to build an “open” system?

A cyber range is an essential tool for a secure digital nation, allowing the simulation of IT, OT, and SCADA systems for attack and defense exercises. However, importing foreign solutions faces major barriers.

First, the initial investment and operating costs are extremely high, leading to waste if capacity is not fully utilized. Second, foreign scenarios are often not closely aligned with Vietnam’s reality and require complex customization. Third, maintaining a team of high-level experts to operate closed systems is a major challenge.

Vietnam has abundant human resources, an open cybersecurity community such as ViSecurity, and ready cloud infrastructure. We can completely solve this problem by taking technological ownership and building an Open Vietnam Cyber Range (oVnCr).

The project emphasizes the "Open" philosophy. How is the "Open" factor understood here?

To overcome the limitations of resources and closed technology, we build oVnCr based on four comprehensive "Open" pillars:

Open Human Resources: We mobilize experts, scholars, and businesses to participate in the development and operation. This eliminates dependence on foreign experts or small local groups.

Open Technology: We prioritize using Open Source and integrating "Make-in-Vietnam" products. This increases autonomy, optimizes costs, and builds a Vietnamese technology brand.

Open Cooperation Mechanism: We implement a "three-party" model: State - University/Institute - Enterprise. All parties participate from the beginning to ensure the rehearsal scenario is "tailor-made" for actual needs.

Open Information: We make scenarios and evaluation results transparent to prevent “achievement disease” or superficial drills. Effectiveness must be measured by real incident-handling capability.

From a technical perspective, is oVnCr capable of simulating attacks on national critical infrastructure?

oVnCr is designed with strong simulation capabilities. The system can simulate everything from traditional IT networks to specialized systems such as IoT and SCADA/ICS (industrial control systems).

In terms of scale, the range can simulate thousands of devices and conduct simultaneous exercises for hundreds of teams. Scenarios are built to closely reflect reality, including SMEs’ systems, core service servers, and even scenarios dedicated to government agencies.

We also prioritize integrating Vietnamese technologies such as the C500 simulation infrastructure of the People’s Security Academy, MobiFone’s cloud, attack tools from PTIT, and the SOC system of Kaspersky Vietnam.

Commercialization roadmap and national vision

What milestones can users expect from the project in the near future?

The project was reported to the government in November 2025. We plan to pilot oVnCr version 1.0 in March 2026 at several universities.

The roadmap is as follows: In June 2026, we will officially launch version 1.0 with IT system simulation capabilities and integrated SOC. In December 2026, version 2.0 will be released with AI integration and commercialization for enterprise training. In June 2027, version 3.0 will be launched, expanding to IoT and SCADA and moving toward a Hybrid Cyber Range model.

We expect oVnCr to become a national digital platform, helping Vietnam not only achieve autonomy in workforce training but also affirm the technological capabilities of Vietnamese people on the global map.

Thai Khang