Vietnam sees big drop in April cyber attacks

There were 203 cyber attacks in Vietnam in April, a drop of more than 68 percent from a year ago, an official agency says.

The Department of Information Security said in a new report that 43 of the total were phishing (fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information) attacks, 89 involved website defacement and 71 deployed malware. The number of attacks decreased by 28 percent compared to March and by 68.2 percent year-on-year.

In the first four months of 2020, the department recorded a total of 1,056 cyber attacks on information systems in Vietnam – 553 phishing attacks, 280 website defacement attacks and 223 malware attacks, down 51.4 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

The main reason for the sharp decrease in the number of cyber attacks is that agencies, organizations and users are equipped with more comprehensive information security solutions, the department said.

Regulations and sanctions have been tightened and made more comprehensive, increasing its deterrence value among high-tech criminals, the department said. Better coordination between major Internet organizations in the world and Vietnamese law enforcement agencies was also a factor, it said.

Programs and policies to support and guarantee information security, including the provision of services like automatic scanning for free as also training materials have allowed organizations and businesses greater access to information on protecting their digital assets.

In 2019, for the first time, Vietnam was ranked by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) among the group of countries and territories with high commitment to cybersecurity, placing 50th among 175 countries and territories, up 50 places compared to 2017.

Hanoi security firm CyStack recorded a 69 percent quarter-on-quarter drop in the number of cyber attacks nationwide to 856 in the fourth quarter of 2019, down from more than 2,500 in the third quarter.

By Hoang Nguyen – VnExpress.net – May 10, 2020