2010 Network Security: Emerging Dangers

According to major-general and Dr. Nguyen Viet The, the head of the Information Technology Department, Ministry of Public Security in the context of booming information technology development, network crimes have become increasingly complex. IT solutions and human factors must combine to confront such kind of crimes. He made the statement at the firth national symposium and showcase on information security (Security World 2010) on March 23-24, 2010 in Hanoi.

Latent risks

There are 23,068,441 internet subscribers in Vietnam at present, accounting for 26.9 percent of the population, said Dr. Nguyen Viet The. A great many businesses and organizations have established websites to promote their products and services (136,953 domain names ending with .vn and millions of commercial websites are now available). Many companies have introduced online payments in business transactions.

However, a lot of risks are associated with Vietnam’s internet network in terms of security. The websites containing malicious codes rose more than 500 percent, with malicious codes found in reliable websites such as search engines, blogs, forum articles, personal websites, online journals or official information pages.

Web attacks also doubled in number. More than 1,000 Vietnamese websites were attacked by hackers in 2009, more than double that of 2008 and triple that of 2007. More than 300 Vietnamese websites of individuals and organizations with domain names ending with .vn were exploited and attacked by foreign hackers in the first three months of 2010. Most of the attacked websites were provided online transactions, banks and service providers. Vietnamese websites feature poor virus protection and most of the websites ignore security alerts by security assurance organizations.

In the meantime, security loopholes associated with IT systems are found in a great number. Around 4,300 security loopholes were found in 2009 against 3,500 in 2008 and up to 30 percent of the loopholes proposed big threats. Nearly a half (49 percent) of the loopholes have yet to be remedied by patches provided by service providers. Reality shows the system managers pay undue attention to remedy the loopholes associated with IT systems and applications.

Viruses still remains a major threat in the words of Dr. The. Over 64.7 million computers host viruses, particularly the W32.SalityVF.PE metamorphic virus line that has infected over 483,000 computers. Over 47,000 computer virus derivatives were found. An estimated 150,000 computers were infected with viruses and Trojans (the most prevalent malicious code) in the first three months of 2010.

When computer viruses are haunting, the mass presence of counterfeited virus-scanning software only in a short period of time has confused computer users globally. Through sending e-mails or making use of searching tools, hackers convince internet users to log-in the false virus-scanning websites that have the same interface as Windows. Statistics show that 144 counterfeited virus-scanning software products have so far been found.

Hi-tech crimes have become increasingly sophisticated causing big losses. More than 40 cases associated with hi-tech crimes that were unveiled in 2009 caused losses amounting to trillions of Vietnam dong. Losses that were resulted from stolen information by businesses and organizations could not be measured. In addition, it is impossible to measure losses resulting from distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS) and illegal exploration of customer database of businesses and organizations.

Mobiles: a new target

Concerning network security trends in 2010, Dr. The said network security continued to be a hot issue in 2010 with the presence of attacks that would be based on ‘ghost’ computer nets (bootnet) to kill rivals. More perfect attack techniques and increasingly malicious code represent major threats in 2010. When the world economy experiences crisis, hackers are finding ways to make profits. Social networking sites have turned into appealing bait for hackers. Social networking sites have become an effective platform to help people communicate with each other. In the meantime, there are a growing number of counterfeited virus-scanning programs and ‘ghost’ computer nets that are controlled by skilled hackers, and the danger of network wars is visible. Mobile phones are likely to become further targets of hackers, especially when third-generation networks go online in Vietnam.

Remote control is important

Information security, particularly network security deserves prime attention, according to Dr. The. Businesses and organizations should be active in shielding their IT system and be capable of evaluating risks and hidden dangers, from there working on plans to ensure information security is right when they embark on building IT systems. They are also required to invest in and constantly improve vehicles to help them ensure IT network security and obey information security standards. Each organization and business should work out a concrete action program to effectively handle Decision 63/QD-TTg pertaining to the national information security planning until 2020 and continually improve the qualification of staff responsible for ensuring information security.

The deputy head of the Financial Statistics and Information Technology Department under the Ministry of Finance Tran Nguyen Vu said businesses spend around 10 percent of their total IT expenditure on information security each year (the lowest level is five to seven percent while the highest is 15-20 percent). However, to ensure efficiency they must observe instructions on information security management./.

Tags: Vietnam IT, Vietnam IT industry, Vietnam Network Security