Ransomware attacks increasingly target Vietnam’s financial sector

At a recent conference on digital finance, Le Van Tuan, Director of the Department of Information Security under the Ministry of Information and Communications, said finance is a sector with a high ranking in digital transformation, but at the same time, the risk of information security is always lurking with the sector.

According to statistics from Viettel Cyber Security's system, ransomware campaigns in the first six months of this year increased by 70% against the same period last year, including about 30 attacks on large corporations, banks and financial institutions in Vietnam.

Notably, Tuan said, there has been an increase in ransomware attacks in Vietnam after a Vietnamese securities company was attacked by ransomware and then the company had to pay the hacker to get the data back.

"When we talked with many domestic and foreign experts, they also shared the same opinion. Previously, hackers were less interested in the Vietnamese market, but since knowing that companies can pay hackers to get their data back, the risk of being attacked is higher," Tuan said.

Tuan said the finance, tax, treasury and securities sectors are all important national infrastructures, so information security in the sectors needs to be invested. In addition to cyberattacks, the sectors also face data breaches when financial data has high value and hackers really want to exploit it.

However, Tuan noted, awareness of information security and implementation of information security work are not up to par.

"When we discovered the risk of a recent attack, we sent a document to relevant agencies, but there were only a few responses," he said.

He recommended that agencies in the financial sector need to invest appropriate resources in information security. The amount of money investing for information security should account for about ten% of total investment in information technology. Personnel need to practise and participate in ensuring information security regularly.

Regarding financial frauds with users, Tuan said users are often tricked into installing fake government applications. Therefore, the Department of Information Security is working with platforms to make Vietnam become the first country to pilot the blue verification badge for government applications, which will help people to identify real or fraudulent apps.

At the event, Deputy Minister of Finance Bui Van Khang affirmed that digital transformation in the finance and budget sector is an urgent and important task because it plays a key role in the economy. To make the digital transformation effectively, it is necessary to focus on legal regulations, technology and people.

Regarding technology, Khang noted the need to focus on improving digital infrastructure capacity, streamlining digital data, and developing applications, digital services and network security, besides deploying and testing new technologies such as AI and Bigdata to serve people and businesses.