Virus alert: 80 percent of USBs in Vietnam are infected

Government officials and IT experts worried about the escalating rate of malware and information security problems in Vietnam are pointing fingers at the humble USB.

They say that up to 80 percent of the USBs in the country get infected at least once a year.

The concerns about information security were expressed at a conference held on Monday by the Ministry of Information and Communication and Vietnam Information Security Association.

The conference aimed to hold extensive discussions with industry leaders in order to find causes and solutions to the problem.

Vu Ngoc Son, vice chairman of the network security company Bkav Corporation, said USB was the leading cause of system malware because it takes advantage of human trust.

Using or borrowing USBs from “trusted” people, assuming that they would not be infected, allows malware to spread rapidly and widely, he said.

Son said up to 80 percent of USBs in Vietnam get infected at least once a year.

According to Bkav, between one and 1.5 million new viruses are discovered daily and there were a total of 12.3 trillion malware attacks in 2017.

Son said Vietnam’s computers do not use the latest software versions to protect their computers’ Server Message Block, a computer network protocol.

Users’ lack knowledge and awareness about information security and their habit of using software of unknown origins are other reasons why malware spreads, turning internet browsers into tracking devices and stealing users’ information, he added.

Nguyen Dai Vu, Vice Chairman of Office of the legislative National Assembly, said Vietnam needs a comprehensive central information security control to protect computers throughout the whole system, from the network infrastructure to the end user, to deal with the country’s information security problem.

As of April 2018, the Information Ministry had recorded more than 13 million Vietnam IPs visiting malware IPs and domains around the world. Vietnam has around 380,000 IPs listed on the blacklist of international organizations.

Earlier this month, Bkav’s website reported that 1.2 million computers in the country were infected with virus W32.XFileUSB which causes them to lose data.