Vietnam improved cybersecurity in 2020: Kaspersky

In a report, it said 39.1 percent of Vietnamese online users were attacked last year as the country fell two places in the list of most attacked to 19th place.

Malaysia had the highest number of web threats in Southeast Asia, 48.75 million.

Kaspersky also detected 268.51 million local threats in Vietnam, or infections where users are attacked by malware spread through offline methods such as removable USB drives, CDs and DVDs, last year, down 27.8 percent.

Some 64.6 percent of Vietnamese users are affected by offline threats, the eighth highest in the world. In 2019 the country had ranked sixth.

Singapore had the lowest number of offline incidents in the neighborhood: 4.41 million.

Yeo Siang Tiong, general director of Kaspersky Southeast Asia, said Vietnam improved its cybersecurity last year despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to a coordinated campaign by the government and private partners.

"Review and remove malware nationwide in 2020" was carried out by the National Cybersecurity Center along with a number of local and foreign organizations.

Thanks to it, the number of botnet IPs nearly halved and more than 1.2 million computers were scanned, including more than 400,000 with malware.

NCSC recorded 5,168 cyberattacks that caused incidents to information systems, down 0.15 percent from 2019.

Viruses cost Vietnam over $1 billion last year, cybersecurity firm Bkav said in a report in January.