Vietnamese police have recently arrested a Taiwanese suspect belonging to a group of foreign hackers who perpetrated attacks against major banks in Vietnam, stealing big bucks from customers, according to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

Lieutenant General To An Xo, the ministry’s spokesman and chief of staff, on June 5 said that the foreign cybercriminals were mainly Taiwanese.

“They breached the server systems of several large Vietnamese banks and launched privilege escalation attacks,” Xo said.

Foreign cyber criminals targeted security holes in the administration system at Vietnamese banks' servers. Photo: congthuong.vn

He added that the MPS has requested the banks to coordinate with the police to patch security holes in their server management system.

Cyber crimes and asset appropriation by fraud were on the rise, An Xo noted, adding that his ministry has detected and handled 840 cases related to online fraud in the first half of 2022, an increase of 42% compared to the last six months of 2021.

“Common tricks scammers use include taking advantage of the high demand for jobs after the Covid-19 pandemic. They post vacancy announcements for remote and easy jobs with attractive remuneration but require applicants to pay a brokerage fee upfront. Once they get paid, they disappear,” Xo said.

Their other act of deceit consists of making calls to victims impersonating law enforcement officers (police, prosecutors, courts), telling them they are involved in a pending case, and asking them to transfer a large amount of money to the account they provide for the investigation.  

Lieutenant General To An Xo added that this group of criminals also launched trading platforms (exchanges of stock, gold, foreign currencies, and real estate) for people to open accounts and then appropriate the investment money.

“The criminals scammed through multi-level marketing business as well,” Xo said.