On the afternoon of April 5, in Hanoi, the Vietnam ICT Press Club coordinated with the National Cyber Security Association to organize a seminar on "Preventing ransomware attacks".
In the digital age, agencies, organizations and businesses have to face threats and risks of information security and insecurity that are constantly increasing in cyberspace every day and every hour. According to statistics, since the beginning of 2023, there have been more than 13,750 cyber attacks on information systems in Vietnam causing incidents. In particular, in the first 3 months of this year alone, the number of cyber attacks on information systems in Vietnam was 2,323.
Recently, many Vietnamese enterprises such as VNDIRECT, VPOIL... have been attacked with data encryption (ransomware). When this incident occurred, the functional forces on network safety and security with the main force A05, Ministry of Public Security and the Department of Information Security, Ministry of Information and Communications have been and are actively supporting these enterprises with experts to overcome and handle the incidents.
The fact that Vietnamese organizations and businesses have been continuously facing ransomware attacks recently is causing many agencies and units to worry about whether there is a ransomware attack campaign targeting domestic information systems.
Faced with this issue, A05 has proactively presided over and coordinated with the Department of Information Security and relevant agencies to coordinate the investigation, guide agencies and businesses to promptly fix the problem, and soon bring information systems back to normal operation, limiting the consequences of damage to agencies and businesses.
The results of the investigation into the handling of data encryption attacks show that the methods of this criminal group are extremely sophisticated and dangerous, and the attack scenarios of the hacker group have many similarities. Attacking the system can cause the suspension of all activities and transactions, and it is difficult to recover sensitive data that has fallen into the hands of hackers. In particular, the data of these units plays a very important role, decisive in the operation of the organization; must maintain and ensure high availability.
At the seminar, Mr. Vu Ngoc Son, Technical Director of National Cyber Security Technology Joint Stock Company (NCS), Head of Technology Research Department of National Cyber Security Association commented that the form of hacker attacks is relatively similar, all are local attacks for a period of time and then encrypt data for ransom. However, the attack techniques of the cases are not the same, so it is possible that these are attacks by different cybercrime groups.
There is no evidence that this is an organized campaign. However, this possibility cannot be ruled out because the incidents have occurred consecutively in a relatively short period of time. "Cybersecurity is a war between humans and humans. It is inevitable that a system will be attacked. We must invest in defense to have better responses, especially to avoid the mentality of locking the barn door after the cow has been stolen," said Mr. Vu Ngoc Son.
Mr. Le Xuan Thuy, Director of the National Cyber Security Center (A05, Ministry of Public Security) also said that the frequency of similar attacks will become more and more frequent, focusing on large systems; because the majority of Vietnamese enterprises do not pay due attention to security issues, despite the wave of digital transformation taking place quickly and strongly.
According to Mr. Le Xuan Thuy, many companies currently have neglected information security systems, or weak links with security member units... These are the main reasons why many companies become victims of attacks. In addition, delays in notifying authorities when incidents occur, confusion, lack of investigation and response plans, hasty system recovery... all make the situation worse, and even lose track of the attack.
Speaking at the seminar, Mr. Pham Thai Son, Deputy Director of the National Cyber Security Monitoring Center (Ministry of Information and Communications), said that although the risk of cyber attacks in Vietnam is still high, the awareness of most businesses about this issue is still not good.
“There is still a delay between perception and action for us. It seems that we have to see something happen before we can react. That is not right with the current speed of information technology development,” said Mr. Pham Thai Son.
According to statistics, Vietnam currently meets over 90% of the solutions to ensure domestic network security. Vietnam is also one of the few countries that can be self-sufficient in network security solutions. Vietnam also has quite a full range of network security products and solutions such as transmission line protection, firewalls, monitoring, attack detection and attack prevention, etc.
However, Vietnam's cybersecurity solutions still face many difficulties in competing with foreign solutions, such as lack of human resources, lack of investment capital, lack of government support, lack of customer trust, etc. Therefore, there needs to be synchronization and coordination between domestic and international agencies, organizations and enterprises to improve the quality and effectiveness of Vietnam's cybersecurity solutions. In particular, it requires the efforts of enterprises to research and develop Make in Vietnam solutions.
TRAN BINH
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