On April 5, at the Seminar "Preventing ransomware attacks" organized by the National Cyber Security Association (NCA) and the Vietnam Information Technology Journalists Club, Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy, Director of the National Cyber Security Center, Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention and Control (A05 - Ministry of Public Security ), said that the number of cyber attacks on organizations and businesses in our country has been increasing recently. In particular, the two most recent cases were VNDirect and PVOIL being attacked with data encryption.
Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy said data encryption attacks cause great damage to businesses.
Also according to Lieutenant Colonel Thuy, in December 2023, an organization in the banking and finance sector was attacked by hackers, illegally transferring money, causing a loss of about 200 billion VND.
From the above cyber attacks, Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy said that data encryption attacks cause huge damage to businesses, "swallowing up" their profits.
The Director of the National Cyber Security Center said that after data encryption attacks occurred, most businesses and organizations that were attacked were confused and did not have a scientific and proper handling process. There were even cases where the incident was not reported to A05 or the Information Security Department of the Ministry of Information and Communications .
"Units that are attacked with encrypted data do not report to the authorities and rush to handle and fix the problem, causing the traces to be lost. Improper handling also increases the risk of other attacks recurring," said Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy.
According to Mr. Thuy, no one can be 100% sure that there will be no cyber attacks, so it is necessary to be proactive so that in case of an attack, it can be resolved as quickly as possible. Regarding concerns about whether data taken by hackers can be recovered or not, Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy said that when data is attacked and encrypted, the chance of recovery is very low, almost zero.
Meanwhile, Mr. Vu Ngoc Son, Head of Technology Research Department - NCA, said that businesses are currently not fully aware of and have not invested adequately in cyber security issues. Although in reality, if they are attacked by cyber attacks, businesses will suffer huge losses. Mr. Son said that when hackers attack data encryption, they will demand ransom to provide the code to unlock the data.
According to Mr. Son's analysis, to encrypt data, hackers must have enough time to know which data is important. Therefore, hackers will have to install malware, collect information daily, and then analyze, evaluate and choose targets to encrypt data. The more components and the more complex an organization is, the longer the time it must lie dormant.
According to Mr. Son's recommendation, businesses and organizations need to be more proactive in prevention. In addition to reviewing vulnerabilities and enhancing technological solutions, large businesses and organizations need to build a specialized cybersecurity team to protect the system.
In addition, it is necessary to deploy a 4-layer protection model as recommended by the Ministry of Information and Communications. In particular, it is required to hire professional network security monitoring services to ensure objectivity, overcome human weaknesses of the system, and promptly detect when the system is attacked or infiltrated.
Regarding the issue of whether organizations and units that are attacked should pay the hacker groups when hackers encrypt data and demand ransom to provide the data unlock code, Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy said that the National Cyber Security Center has participated in the initiative program to combat ransomware attacks with more than 50 participating countries, most of the opinions emphasized not transferring ransom to the hacker group.
According to Mr. Thuy, paying ransom to hackers will create a bad precedent, stimulating other cyber attacks against us. "If we firmly fight against the attacks, it will reduce the motivation of hacker groups" - Lieutenant Colonel Le Xuan Thuy stated his opinion. However, Mr. Thuy also emphasized that there are currently no regulations on paying ransom to hackers, so it still depends on the choice of the business.
Cybersecurity expert Vu Ngoc Son also emphasized the point of view of not transferring ransom money to hacker groups, because it will create a bad precedent for that business and other businesses.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/co-to-chuc-tin-dung-ngan-hang-bi-tan-cong-chuyen-tien-trai-phep-thiet-hai-200-ti-dong-196240405164521719.htm
Comment (0)