The National Cyber Security Center under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) has launched a nationwide campaign to clean up malicious code in Vietnam's cyberspace.

The campaign, in response to the National Digital Transformation Day on October 10, call for businesses, organizations, and individuals in 63 provinces and cities across the country to rally the cooperation of all citizens to remove malicious code.

The campaign is carried out nationwide, with anti-malicious code software pieces. Photo: The Hanoi Times

The campaign aims at reducing the proportion of computers in Vietnam being infected with malicious codes.

The campaign is carried out nationwide, with anti-malicious-code software pieces being offered for free at the address of https://khonggianmang.vn/chiendichmadoc2022.

The campaign is implemented via specialized information security units of ministries and ministerial-level agencies; the Information and Communications Department of all provinces and municipalities; financial organizations; Web-hosting service providers and database centers; enterprises running popular platforms in Vietnam; and among others.

The National Cyber Security Center informed that there has been a considerable rise in the use of personal computers and network-connected equipment, which is an ideal environment for computer viruses and malicious codes to spread.

Cyber attacks have happened in Vietnam as many network-connected devices and websites or IP addresses here have long been in botnets, be they from individual households or large organizations and businesses, and thus easily spreading malicious codes. This has negatively affected the reputation of Vietnam in the IT community and more seriously the national digital transformation process.

The center added that a large number of Vietnamese computer users still keep the wrong habit of installing cracked or unlicensed software, regardless of the fact that these pieces are not timely updated to fix their security weaknesses.

This results in those computers being vulnerable to malicious codes since cracking tools are also malicious codes themselves. These devices then become a part of the chain to spread the harmful codes to other computers.