Meeting Urgent Demands for Digital Age

This is the information given at the workshop of National Exhibition of Security 2016 (Security World 2016), entitled "Information Safety and Data Security: Urgent Demand for the Digital Age", held on March 29 in Hanoi. The event was hosted by the General Department of Security in cooperation with International Data Group in Vietnam (IDG Vietnam).

 

Speaking at the workshop, Mr Nguyen Thanh Hai, Director of Information Security, Ministry of Information and Communications, said the risks from unsafe information cause not only loss of profit and delayed work, but also losses of business opportunities and bad effects on corporate brand image. Therefore, in addition to the management and control of the authorities, every business needs to be actively self-conscious of business protection against potential risks of information insecurity in the Internet era.

 

According to the Vietnam Computer Emergency Response (VNCERT), Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), from December 2014 to December 2015, the VNCERT had recorded a total of 31,585 information security incidents in Vietnam, including 5,898 scams and attacks, 8,850 incidents changing the appearances look and 16,837 incidents affecting the coding process.

 

Colonel Nguyen Van Thinh, Deputy Director, Department of Network Security (A68), the Ministry of Public Security, also issued a warning that the network security is moving complicatedly. Vietnam is ranked first in the world in the rate of malware infection via external storage devices (according to Kaspersky); 70.83 per cent of computers that are infected; 39.55 per cent of users are facing malicious code derived from cyberspace. In addition, more than 10,000 pages per portal of vn domain name are faced with hijacking, changing interface, or malicious code, up 68 per cent compared to 2014, of which 224 sites have been managed by government agencies, down 11 per cent compared to 2014.

 

According to Colonel Nguyen Van Thinh, the main cause of such situations comes from the inefficient provisions of the law on security and information security of Vietnam. Most of the technical solutions to ensure security and safety information are provided by foreign partners. In addition, the security awareness and information security of the computer users are limited.

 

Recognizing this situation, the Information Security Law has been firstly launched, along with Resolution 36a/NQ-CP, stating the terms of the official network security that were issued in late 2015.

 

Recently, the Office of the Government has also proposed the MIC research, advice and recommendations on policies to encourage the hiring of experts of information security (information security) or an advisory body of safety, information security as a solution for enterprise security. Additionally, many pilot activities to be against the cyber attacks at different levels have been held in many parts of the country to help local provinces be ready in the more complicated network security battle.

 

Colonel Vo Tuan Dung, Deputy Director of the Police Department of Hi-tech Crime Prevention, the Ministry of Public Security, has proposed a number of measures such as strengthening governance the state security, network security, data security on the use of the Internet; strengthening dissemination and propagation; and sharpening international cooperation in the fight against tech crimes.

 

For agencies, the businesses and organisations need to overhaul and check website security vulnerabilities; use firewalls and anti-virus programmes; timely fix loopholes; apply rights management measures to exploit information and data from the agencies and organisations; and use devices with high security to minimize the possibility of attacks.

 

Taken place at the same time, the Security Technology Exhibition brings solutions, modern security products on network security, cloud computing security, big data encryption, virtualization, etc. This year's exhibition attracts many leading solution companies in the area of information security and risk management such as Cisco, Blancco, Samsung, Paolo Alto Networks, Trend Micro, Parasoft, Jupiter Networks and HP.