Intense network security in Vietnam

1.4 million computers infected with 'internal' virus in the first week of September 2006, hundreds of websites were attacked by domestic and foreign hackers are some numbers about the state of cyber security in Vietnam. The National Computer Emergency Rescue Center (VNCERT) said it will focus on coordinating quickly to deal with security issues in the network environment.

'Internal' virus fever

According to VNCERT, an estimated 1.4 million computers in Vietnam have been infected with 'internal' viruses spread through Yahoo! Messenger for about a week in early September 2006. This is a surprising number because according to recent statistics of Bach Khoa Network Security Center (BKIS), about 550,000 computers in Vietnam have been infected with 'internal' viruses that appeared in September.

Source: typepad Explain the above figure, VNCERT said immediately after the virus spread through Yahoo! Messenger in early September, the center sent an official letter requesting 6 large ISPs to prevent the spread of these viruses. According to VNCERT, the spreading viruses of Yahoo1 Messenger mainly spread from several domains located abroad. Therefore, if blocking the connection to these domains can stop the spread of viruses.

Immediately after the dispatch of VNCERT, NetNam said, in just one day, the company has recorded about 5000 visits to 6 sources to distribute viruses from NetNam's system. NetNam is a small ISP, accounting for 2.58 Internet subscribers. If you convert the remaining ISPs in a simple way, the number of computers in Vietnam infected with these viruses is estimated at 200,000 computers a day, and in a week 1.4 million computers are infected.

A representative of VNCERT said that if we assume that each computer costs about US $ 2 in recovery costs, we have lost about US $ 2.8 million (more than VND 40 billion) for these "internal" viruses. That's not to mention if these viruses destroy data, the consequences will be impossible to measure, VNCERT representative said.

According to BKIS statistics, only in September 2006, up to 10 "internal" viruses spread through Yahoo! Messenger has been launched online. September is also the record month for virus numbers, with 3 new viruses appearing on average.

Crime started professionally

Over the past few days, a series of domain names of electronic market, e-commerce trading floor of Hoa Binh Software Solution Company have been repeatedly attacked by hackers to usurp domain names. The attack on the Electronic Market lasted for 10 days at the end of September 2006, causing the company to abandon the international domain name, transfer all activities to the .vn domain name.

Mr. Nguyen Tu Quang said that BKIS is cooperating with the high-tech crime prevention unit to investigate. However, according to Mr. Quang, the initial records show that this is a well-prepared attack, possibly involving many hackers.

The electronic market website was repeatedly attacked

Previously, the e-commerce website of Viet Co and Nhan Hoa's website had been attacked to deny service, stalling operation for a long time. In May 2006, the website of VMS Mobifone was attacked and lost information, then one month VDC's website was hacked. In January 2006, the high-tech crime investigation unit, the Ministry of Public Security, arrested a line of stolen international credit cards.

Zone-H (address of hacked websites) has listed 30 websites of government agencies (.gov.vn), 10 business websites and nearly 20 other .vn websites have been Hackers attack from June to the end of September 2006. In August 2006, BKIS conducted a safety assessment survey with 200 websites in Vietnam. As a result, up to 50 websites have serious security errors, many of which are .gov.vn websites.

It can be said that the state of network security from the beginning of the year has always been hot. However, according to Do Ngoc Duy Trac, VNCERT's operations manager, more worrisome is that computer criminals have begun to form activities like international criminals, bringing professional criminal appearance. ' A few years before the popular computer crime was stealing credit passwords to buy books online, recently went to make fake credit cards for money laundering, forming ghost computer networks to send spam, promissory notes reports, denial of service attacks, even signs of extortion of commercial websites ', said Trac.

National coordination role

With the current development of ICT applications, Mr. Vu Quoc Khanh, Director of VNCERT said that the loss of network security will increase rapidly and seriously affect economic development if the security of the network is not fully deployed.

Mr. Khanh said, VNCERT is completing the information security strategy in the network environment, which will offer quick countermeasures to issues affecting information security on the network.

It is expected that VNCERT works will be implemented from now till 2010 to build early warning systems for network security issues, systems to help investigate incidents and network crimes, and systems to overcome weaknesses. , data collection, monitoring and statistics system.

Besides, VNCERT will also actively build coordination mechanism, participate in developing a legal framework for network security issues, develop information security standards and implement awareness raising programs. community of information security on the network environment. However, ' in the short term, this center will focus strongly on coordinating activities to quickly solve network security issues ,' Khanh said.

According to VNCERT representative, the initial coordination activities of the center have brought about remarkable results. For example, most recently in the website of the Electronic Market was attacked, VNCERT quickly asked ISPs to isolate the process of resolving Chodientu.com domain names while waiting for Register.com (in the Market). Domain registrar electronics fix the problem and ask domestic ISPs to prevent access to sources that are spreading viruses. Therefore, Chodientu's website quickly returned to normal operation, although Register.com has not resolved the problem yet.

Earlier, in early September 2006, to limit the spread of 'internal' viruses spread through Yahoo! Messenger, VNCERT sent a document requesting coordination of domestic ISPs. Trac said that if ISPs seriously implemented a request to block connections to sources that spread these viruses, it would be possible to stop the spread within minutes.

' But perhaps this is an unprecedented problem, so some ISPs are not actively coordinating ,' said Trac. However, VNCERT representative confirmed that the center will issue binding regulations in the coming time, requiring ISPs to coordinate in dealing with information security issues in the network environment.

Do Duy