A screen shows lines of code. The shortage of professional security IT staff was a major cause for the internet security failure in Viet Nam, according to an industry report. — Photo giaoduc.net.vn

According to the Viet Nam Information Security Association, 52 per cent of the internet security failures were professional errors and 10 per cent were due to the lack of professional ethics.

The association blamed it on the absence of professional security IT staff in government organisations and businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

Meanwhile, IT security training in Viet Nam is still on a small scale with a limited number of training centres and colleges.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, in order to increase the quality and quantity of IT security professionals, the government early this year issued Decision 99, which drew a road map for the development of an IT security force towards 2020.

According to the plan, eight leading universities and colleges have been selected to focus on IT security training, while the government will send 300 lecturers to study IT security abroad.

Meanwhile, 10,000 IT employees in government organisations will be retrained with a focus on IT security.

Viet Nam ranked 12th in the list of countries facing the maximum cyber attacks in 2013, according to the Internet Security Threat report (ISTR19) released by the Symantec Corporation.

Symantec said Viet Nam jumped nine spots in the list because of the rapidly increasing number of mobile internet subscribers and users who lack good cyber security skills.

The Symantec report showed that a series of cyber attacks in 2013 caused the greatest loss in history. The total number of documents leaked online in the world increased by 62 per cent compared with 2012, resulting in the identities of 552 million users being revealed.

Hacking attacks rose 91 per cent, with assistants and people working in public relations being targeted more because cyber criminals were targeting celebrities or business leaders.