Hanoi (VNA)☂ - Vietnam’s cyber security is being compromised,posing new challenges in ensuring information safety, especially in thefinance-banking sector, State agencies and organisations.

The information was released by deputy head of the GovernmentInformation Security Commission Nguyen Dang Dao at an internationalconference themed “Security World 2019” held in Hanoi at the end of May. At the conference, participants focused on Vietnam’s cyber securityand solutions to strengthen data protection in the public andfinance-banking sectors. Major General Dao said that cyber-attacks, espionage andcybercrime have been on the increase resulting in the theft of statesecrets and the destruction of information systems. This situation was set to become even more complicated andthe finance-banking sector would continue to be a target for hackers, headded. Dao also pointed out five risks the country is facing: malware;attacks on e-commerce and finance-banking systems with the aim of extorting,stealing information of organisations and individuals; attacks oninfrastructure and IoT equipment; attacks on state agencies andorganisations in order to steal state secrets; and distributing harmfuland false information online. Do Anh Tuan, deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security'sDepartment of Cyber Security and High-tech Crime Prevention, said in recentyears, cybercriminals have attacked banks around the world, includingATMs, causing serious consequences. In Vietnam, he said stealing card information and counterfeitingcards (Skimming) are becoming complicated. “Vietnam has about 70 million domestic cards. If it is slow toswitch from bank cards to chip cards, it could become the focus of cardfraud. Skimming is increasing in Vietnam,” Tuan said. For example, Tuan said in 2018 and early 2019 foreigners hadarrived in Vietnam on the pretext of travelling. “They rented houses andinstalled broadband to conduct fraudulent transactions and make fake bankcards to withdraw money or pay bills/services via point-of-sale (POS) machines,stealing hundreds of millions of dollars.” From the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Public Security has arrestedmore than 120 foreigners for this crime, he added. He also said that groups organising online gambling via bank accounts arecommon, with millions of dollars per day changing hands. At the end of April,police broke up a gambling ring worth more than 30 trillion VND (1.28billion USD), and arrested 29 people. According to statistics from the State Bank of Vietnam, there were 26organisations providing e-wallet services in Vietnam. By the end of last year,there were 4.2 million e-wallets linked to bank accounts. The whole bankingsystem handled 73 quadrillion VND in 2018, up 25 percent compared to 2017,averaging 300 trillion VND each day. A report from the Ministry of Public Security showed that there arethousands of Vietnamese websites attacked by hackers annually. In the firstmonths of this year, over 2,500 websites with Vietnamese domain names wereattacked and hundreds of thousands of computers were infected with malware.-VNA