A drill on cyber security was held in Da Nang city on June 29 (Photo: VNA)Da Nang (VNA) – Preventing Advanced PersistentThreat (APT) attacks on national critical information infrastructure was themain topic of a seminar and drill on cyber security for central Vietnam and theCentral Highlands in the central city of Da Nang on June 29.
The event was held at the Quang Trung Software City bythe Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT) in partnership with thecity’s Department of Information and Telecommunications and the Vietnam Postsand Telecommunications Group (VNPT).
The event brought together cyber security forces andofficers from many ministries, the Party Central Committee Office, NationalAssembly Office and Government Office, and leading experts on APT attacks.
According to Deputy Minister of Information andCommunications Nguyen Thanh Hung, the drill scenario simulates a real-lifecyber-attack in which a computer of a governmental institution is tricked intoa phishing scam and infected with malwares which seem harmless but open way forhackers to enter the internal computer network to steal confidential and topsecret data, and gradually take over the control of the entire system.
This is the first large-scale security drill ever held inthe central and Central Highlands regions, Hung said. He stressed that it is anopportunity for cyber security authorities and agencies to exchange experience;enhance their cyber-attack readiness and capacity to protect criticalinformation infrastructure; and improve public awareness of cyber security.
Vice Chairman of Da Nang city’s People’s Committee Ho KyMinh said Da Nang has put into use an e-Government information system with allcomponents as regulated by the Law on Information Technology and recommended bythe World Bank. The system now contains more than 12,000 accounts of publicemployees in 230 units and 86,000 accounts of public service users. It hasprocessed about 4 million applications for public services annually.
Minh noted that to protect the system, the city has setup a special task force to operate it and deal with any failure or securityincidents of the system. The task force has also joined the national cybersecurity emergency response network, he said.
During the seminar, delegates delivered reports onvarious issues, such as current status and solutions to ensure informationsecurity for e-Portals in the region, preventing APT attacks on nationalcritical security networks, and more.
First appearing at the end of 2010 and the beginning of2011, APT attacks have remained one of the top information security threats,said VNCERT Deputy Director General Nguyen Khac Lich. Using sophisticated anddiverse methods, APT attacks use advanced tricks and social engineering techniquesto dupe security walls and cause enormous damage to the national criticalinformation infrastructure.
Statistics show that more than 27 percent of APT attacks havetargeted governmental institutions, followed by those hitting banking andfinancial institutions and telecommunication firms with a large customerdatabase.
Vietnam has seen a number of APT attacks on bigorganisations; most notable among these is the cyber-attack on the nationalflag carrier Vietnam Airlines in July last year.
The VNCERT reported that last year, Vietnam was hit by 13,382cyber-attacks, including 6,400 Malware, 4,377 Deface and 2,605 Phishing attacks. Some 5,179 cyber-attacks have been recorded since the beginning of2018, consisting of 1,122 Phishing, 3,200 Deface and 857 Malware attacks.
VNCERT is a member of the Asia PacificComputer Emergency Response Team with over 120 units and 500 technicians. Over the pastseveral years, the VNCERT has coordinated with other Vietnamese organisationsto take part in international cyber security drills, such as ASEAN CERTsIncident Drill, ASEAN – Japan cyber security drill and a drill to test responsecapability of computer security incident response teams from 20 countries andterritories in Asia-Pacific.-VNA
VNA
