Vietnam cyberattacks down by half

That represented a 45.9 percent decrease from the same period last year.

Phishing accounted for 1,556 cases, defacement attacks 968 and malware attacks 635, according to a report by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The report showed that phishing had been curbed more than other crimes, and was down 76.9 percent year-on-year in January and 47.4 percent in May.

Vietnam reported 54 anti-cyber attack campaigns in the first six months, many of which cracked down malicious code transmitters, while some attacks aimed at banks and government institutes were shut down.

However, government entities suffered twice as many attacks with malicious codes as the same period last year.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said at the 2019 Vietnam Security Summit in April that last year none of the country’s 90 ministries and departments had the highest cybersafety rating of grade A. Only 17 percent had even a grade B rating, while 70 percent were in grade C and 13 percent in grade D. None had grade E, the lowest, either.

Half of these organizations do not have a unit in charge of cybersecurity or engage a cybersecurity firm for the purpose. Thus, when there is an attack, they do not know how to respond, he told the conference.

Vietnam was ranked 50th out of 175 states last year in the Global Cybersecurity Index issued by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union.

The index, published in March this year, showed Vietnam in fifth place out of 11 Southeast Asian countries, behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. But 50th place represented considerable progress considering it had ranked 101st out of 195 countries in the same index in 2017.

Vietnam has more than 64 million Internet users out of a population of around 97 million.