http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2005/11/513109/ Viet Nam News 18/11/2005 Global victims of hackers and computer viruses spent over US$100bil in 2004 to recover the financial losses caused by these modern forms of pestilence, according to a computer security expert. Furthermore, a new computer virus appears every seven seconds, according to Nguyen The Dong, director of Athena Computer Emergency Response Centre (CERC). He said that 97% of Vietnamese offices and organisations were vulnerable to attacks. "In Vietnam, there is a lack of security awareness among top management at enterprises, and computer hacking remains the biggest danger," said Dong at the "White Hat Hacker Convention," which was held on Tuesday in HCM City to increase local awareness about potential network security disturbances. The convention was jointly held by the Sai Gon Computer Times, Athena CERC and the Information and Communication Technologies Partnership Club. One difficulty facing, enterprises is in differentiating "white hat" hackers, who help IT managers find and repair their network's faults, from "black hat" hackers, who use their computers to engage in illegal activities and cause headaches for private individuals, companies and organisations. "There is a fine line between the two kinds of hackers. We would like to ask hackers to keep in mind the harmful effects their games can have on the community," Dong said. Athena CERC carried out a survey on network and information security among 415 enterprises in HCM City, Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces. Of the participants, 28% were foreign-invested enterprises, 54% were privately run and 18% were State-owned. "Ninety-seven per cent of respondents said their networks had received junk email, 91% had been infected by viruses and 97% felt their networks were vulnerable to hackers," Dong said. He went on to say that all the enterprises surveyed had their own IT managers with a basic awareness of how to protect their information and prevent attacks. "However, most of the companies do not possess concrete or long-term plans to protect their networks and are not prepared with professional solutions in the event their networks are assaulted," he said. "In addition, top management at most domestic enterprises have yet to realise the gravity of the situation and so haven't paid enough attention to or truly invested in information protection." Network security expert Pham Trong Diem from Nam Truong Son, an electronic security firm, said that in 2001, only 0.3% of emails around the world were infected with a virus, but three years later, the figure had reached 30%. "Furthermore," he said, "the frequency of hacker attacks has been increasing. There were 1,334 attacks in 1994, a number which soared to 137,529 recorded hacks in 2003. That number will continue to rise." At present, there are around 700 unofficial programmes used by hackers to break into website and network systems. "Businesses tend to use a defensive rather than an offensive approach, which does not work," Diem said. "If IT managers wait until a virus has already penetrated their network, it's far too late." According to Dong, there is no one perfect security solution. It is a long process, involving a detailed overview and investment. "Anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes should be continuously updated. IT managers have to keep themselves up-to-date on the latest viruses and hacker activities," Diem advised. _________________________________________ Earn your Master's degree in Information Security ONLINE www.msia.norwich.edu/csi Study IA management practices and the latest infosec issues. Norwich University is an NSA Center of Excellence.
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