Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam suffered 620 cyber attacks in the first threemonths of this year, down by about 50 percent compared with last year’s figure,according to the Authority of Information Security (AIS) under the Ministry ofInformation and Communications.
The number of IP addresses categorised in ghost computernetworks (botnets) was 1,845,133, a decrease of 56 percent compared with thesame period last year.
As many as 54 enterprises have been granted business licencesto trade and provide network security services in the first quarter of theyear.
“These figures show that the cyber security in Vietnam hasseen positive changes. In particular, campaigns to handle malicious code inHanoi and HCM City by the Ministry of Information and Communications haveachieved certain results,” the AIS said in a statement.
Experts from the AIS recommended that there were manywebsites that look similar to those of organisations, businesses and serviceproviders so users should be wary of fake websites to avoid hackers stealingtheir accounts. To limit the risk of losing information, people should bevigilant in providing their personal and payment information for onlineservices.
Statistics from the National Cyber Security Centre showedthat about 10,220 cyber attacks on information system were recorded by thecentre last year, a decrease of 1,023 attacks compared with the previous year.
An assessment on cyber security conducted by Bkav Corporationin December last year revealed that the damage caused by computer viruses toVietnamese users reached a record of 14.9 trillion VND (642 million USD) in2018, 21 percent higher than 2017’sfigure.
Earlier this year, the AIS has forecast five majortrends in network safety and security to watch in 2019.
These five trends include network attacks,especially malicious code attacks using artificial intelligence (AI); attackinge-commerce and financial-banking systems with the aim of stealing personalinformation and data from users; attacks on infrastructure, internet of things(IoT) equipment, smart urban areas, and taking advantage of these devices tocarry out network attacks; intentional network attacks on state agencies andorganisations in order to steal information and data; and the tendency tosmear, defame and spread malicious information against agencies, organisationsand individuals.-VNA