Cybersecurity: An urgent requirement in ensuring national security

As Vietnam enters a period of accelerated digital transformation, the vital task is to protect national cyberspace. This is not only a technical issue but has become an urgent requirement to ensure national security, social safety and people's trust in digital technology.

At the 2025 member meeting organized by the National Cyber Security Association (NCA) with the theme "Cybersecurity in the new era - Joining forces to protect digital space" held on the morning of April 11 in Hanoi, many experts, managers and businesses discussed in depth the challenges and solutions to the 'problem' of cyber security in the new era.

Cyber attacks are increasingly sophisticated

Speaking at the meeting, Lieutenant General Nguyen Minh Chinh - Director of the Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention and Control - A05 (Ministry of Public Security), Permanent Vice President of the National Cyber Security Association, said that the Politburo has issued Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation, requiring the work of ensuring network safety and security and responding to high-tech crimes to be effectively implemented.

"Resolution 57 of the Politburo is the guideline for the activities of the entire political system, in which the Association plays an important role," Lieutenant General Nguyen Minh Chinh emphasized.

Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ba Son - Deputy Director of the Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention - A05 (Ministry of Public Security) emphasized that besides the positive aspects, cyberspace also poses risks and challenges to the work of ensuring national security and maintaining social order and safety.

According to him, cyber attacks, cyber espionage by hacker groups, and the leakage of information and personal data are becoming increasingly dangerous. High-tech crimes are becoming more and more complex, with increasingly sophisticated methods and tricks.

Mr. Le Cong Trung - Head of MobiFone's Cyber Security Department pointed out the increasing trend of cyber criminals stealing information - stealers with the main targets being stealing browser information, Facebook accounts, and sensitive information for profit.

Citing evidence to clarify the level of danger of information-stealing malware, MobiFone representative said that providing services in the form of "Stealer-as-a-service" (stealing data as a service), the group developing the VietCredCare malware has infiltrated the data of many agencies, organizations, large enterprises and universities in Vietnam.

MobiFone representative also pointed out some notable figures showing the level of danger of cyber attacks on agencies, organizations, businesses and Vietnamese people in 2024, namely: Damage caused by ransomware attacks amounted to 11 million USD; 14.5 million accounts were leaked; 10 Terabytes of data were sold on cyberspace; the banking sector was the most targeted sector with 71% of attacks; 924,000 DDoS distributed denial of service attacks.

“According to a survey by the National Cyber Security Association, the total damage caused by online fraud to Vietnamese users in 2024 will reach VND18,900 billion; and for every 220 smartphone users, 1 person will become a victim of fraud,” added a MobiFone representative.

Mr. Le Cong Trung - Head of MobiFone's Cyber Security Department. (Photo: Minh Son/Vietnam+)

Mr. Nguyen Duc Bang - Director of Financial Banking Solutions NGS Consulting shared that in the world as well as in Vietnam, the damage from cybercrime, including fraud and scams in cyberspace, is huge.

Citing statistics compiled from reports by a number of prestigious agencies and organizations around the world, Mr. Nguyen Duc Bang said that in 2024, cybercrime will earn about 4,500 billion USD, equivalent to the third largest economy in the world, just behind the revenue of the two largest economies, the US and China.

“These numbers give us a lot of information about the severity of cyber attacks, as well as the importance of investing in systems, investing in solutions and linking together to fight together, minimizing damage to organizations, businesses and users,” commented Mr. Nguyen Duc Bang.

A report by Kaspersky Security Company released in early April also showed that in 2024, mobile banking Trojans increased 3.6 times compared to 2023, while the number of cryptocurrency scams also recorded an increase of 83.4%.

Specifically, in 2024, cybercriminals lured users to visit fake websites that mimicked the interfaces of famous brands and financial institutions. The banking sector became the most targeted in financial fraud, accounting for 42.6% of all cases, compared to 38.5% in 2023.

In addition, fraud impersonating payment systems is also a hot front. In 2024, Kaspersky detected and blocked such incidents, accounting for 19.3% of all financial fraud (down slightly from 19.9% in 2023).

Mr. Nguyen Duc Bang - Director of Financial Banking Solutions, NGS Consulting. (Photo: Minh Son/Vietnam+)

NGS Consulting representative also noted that in the context of increasingly developing AI and the limitless global Internet, cybercrime in general and fraud crimes in particular are becoming more sophisticated and modern, offering more unpredictable and difficult forms of attack, fraud and scams.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Vu Anh Tu - Technology Director of FPT Corporation commented that in the AI era, AI is both an offensive "weapon" and a defensive "shield".

According to Mr. Tu, 90% of the world's cybersecurity platform solutions have integrated AI. Governments have increased investment in AI-integrated cybersecurity operations centers; AI-led cybersecurity startups have attracted large amounts of investment capital.

Join forces to cope

According to Mr. Vu Anh Tu, organizations and businesses need to form smart cybersecurity alliances and establish a multi-layered SCO platform (nation-ministry, industry-enterprise) applying AI to automate warnings and responses.

Along with that is training human resources to use AI combined with information security to form a truly strong team of "digital warriors".

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tuan - Deputy General Director of MobiFone Telecommunications Corporation informed that MobiFone has set two tasks to ensure national network security and protect user data. MobiFone's network security process is implemented according to international standards, along with security technology solutions and raising user awareness.

According to expert Vu Ngoc Son - Head of Technology Department, National Cyber Security Association, agencies, organizations and enterprises in Vietnam need to continue to improve their cybersecurity capacity, in the context that more than 20% of agencies and enterprises do not have specialized cybersecurity personnel and 35.56% of units do not have enough personnel according to demand. The whole country is expected to lack more than 700,000 specialized cybersecurity personnel.

Mr. Vu Ngoc Son - Head of Technology Department, National Cyber Security Association. (Photo: Minh Son/Vietnam+)

One of the solutions proposed by the National Cyber Security Association is to build a cybersecurity training and certification platform nCademy to create a learning community, raise awareness and conduct in-depth research on cybersecurity.

At the event, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Ba Son - Deputy Director of Department A05 also updated information on state management of network security, after receiving the functions and tasks of state management of network information security from the Ministry of Information and Communications (now the Ministry of Science and Technology).

Accordingly, in order to unify and enhance the effectiveness of state management in the field of ensuring network security and information security, the Politburo and the Central Steering Committee for Summarizing the Implementation of Resolution 18 dated October 25, 2017 of the 6th Central Conference of the 12th tenure agreed on the policy of transferring the functions and tasks of ensuring network security to the Ministry of Public Security.

Notably, the Ministry of Public Security has proposed to consolidate and complete legal regulations on cyber security on the basis of merging the 2018 Cyber Security Law and the 2015 Cyber Security Law into the 2025 Cyber Security Law. The proposal to merge the two laws is to match the new functions and tasks of the Ministry of Public Security on cyber security. The 2025 Cyber Security Law is expected to be applied according to simplified procedures, submitted to the National Assembly for consideration, comments and approval at the 10th session of the 15th National Assembly in October 2025.

In addition, the Law on Personal Data Protection is currently being submitted by the Government to the National Assembly Standing Committee for consideration and comments before being submitted to the National Assembly for comments and approval at the 9th session of the 15th National Assembly in May 2025.

Regarding documents guiding the implementation of related Laws, Decrees, and Circulars, Mr. Nguyen Ba Son said that A05 has determined to develop a Decree detailing a number of articles of the 2025 Law on Cyber Security in a simplified order after promulgating the Law and consolidating it.

"We will also complete the system of regulations on standards and technical regulations on network security in the direction of unification, recognition of existing standards on network information security, renaming standards and regulations to match the regulations on functions and tasks in the new situation," added Senior Colonel Nguyen Ba Son./.

(Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/an-ninh-mang-yeu-cau-cap-bach-trong-viec-bao-dam-an-ninh-quoc-gia-post1027177.vnp