Viet Nam was named the nation facing the second-highest level of cyber security risk in Asia Pacific markets by a Microsoft Asia report on Thursday.

The Asian branch of the American computer giant released regional findings from the Security Intelligence Report (SIR), Volume 21, a twice-yearly report that provides unique insights into the threat landscape to help organisations learn about trend data in industry vulnerabilities, exploits, malware and web-based attacks.

The latest report identified Asia Pacific markets--especially emerging markets--as among those facing the highest risk of cyber security threats. Three out of the top five global spots for the rate of malware encounters in the region.

The new edition of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report covers threat data from the first half of 2016, based on analysis of threat information from over a billion systems worldwide. Also included are longer-term trend data and detailed threat profiles for over 100 individual markets and regions.

Out of the top five locations across the globe most at risk of infection, two are located in Southeast Asia: Viet Nam and Indonesia. Both locations had a malware encounter rate of more than 45 per cent in the second quarter of 2016, which is more than double the worldwide average of over 21 per cent during the same period. Other top markets under malware threats include large developing markets and Southeast Asia countries – Mongolia, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and India – each with encounter rates of more than 30 per cent.

However, markets in the region with higher levels of IT maturity such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore have displayed malware encounter rates that are below the worldwide average, highlighting the diverse cyber security landscape in the Asia Pacific.

The report showed that the top most encountered malicious software families in Asia Pacific include gamarue, a worm which can give a malicious hacker control of your PC, steal information and change PC security settings; lodbak, a trojan that is usually installed on removable drives by Gamarue, and which attempts to install Gamarue when the infected removable drive is connected to a computer; and dynamer, a trojan which can steal personal information, download more malware or give hackers access to computers. 

VNS