More than 97,000 network accounts have been compromised in Vietnam over the past three quarters of 2021, according to the Threat Intelligence division of Viettel Cyber Security.

Director of Viettel Cyber Security Nguyen Son Hai said at a recent online forum on information technology (IT) leadership and information security that his firm has detected 16 large-scale data leaks in Vietnam, twice as many as last year.

The 97,000 accounts, which the Threat Intelligence division found, had been exposed in various fields, including social networks, banking, and securities accounts of high value, Hai added.

A female makes online stock transactions at a securities company in Hanoi before the Covid-19 outbreak. Photo: Pham Hung

"Around 2,000 exposed accounts are in the banking and securities sectors. Among these, there is a bank account with a balance of VND5billion (US$220,300) and a securities account with a value of VND30 billion (US$1.3 million)," Hai said.

In the first half of this year, the Viettel Threat Intelligence system detected about 3,000 fraudulent domain names, three times higher than the same period last year, Hai cited, adding that since late 2020, the system has detected more than 1,400 domain names impersonating all banks in Vietnam, along with some e-wallets and international money transfer services.

In addition to attacks targeting users, many cyberattacks have targeted agencies and organizations, including "advanced persistent threat," a stealthy threat actor which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period, and denial of service (DDoS) from IoT (internet of things) devices.

Hai stressed the issue that many companies are facing today is that the design of security systems they use does not keep up with new technologies and at the same time, many security systems these days are way too complex and difficult to manage.

Regarding the issue, Tran Quang Hung, director of the National Cyber Security Monitoring Center (NCSC), said since the fourth Covid-19 wave broke out in late April, the risk of cyber attacks in Vietnam has increased in the context of the pandemic as many companies and organizations have switched to work remotely and depended more on online platforms.

The center has recorded and handled thousands of fraud cases in different forms, including fake bank websites, fake e-commerce floors, and fraudulent calls, Hung cited.

He proposed that three stakeholders, businesses/organizations, information security service providers, and state management agencies with experts in information security join hands to limit the risk of cyberattacks.

“For instance, to deal with phishing attacks to steal users' information, NCSC would build a warning website where users and businesses can proactively provide information when in doubt. On receiving the information, we would process it and it would take only about 30 minutes to an hour to detect any possible threat, which would help reduce damages a lot,” Hung said.