BKAV's vice chairman of R&D Vu Ngoc Son (right) and Nguyen Minh Duc, vice director of Bkav's internet security division, introduces the company's mobile security. — File Photo

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— Viet Nam's leading internet security firm BKAV on Wednesday said it had attracted one million users to its security application on mobile devices.

The company, better known for it BKAV anti-virus software product which accounts for 70 per cent of the local internet security market, said the figure was based on the number of downloads on Android's Google Play only, not including iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry or Symbian handsets. "Among the 1 million users of our BKAV Mobile Security app, about 14 per cent were downloaded from abroad," said BKAV's vice chairman of R&D Ngoc Son.

Son said that last month, BKAV had signed an agreement with Index Corporation, one of the leading mobile content providers in Japan, to distribute BKAV Mobile Security worldwide.

The Ha Noi-based firm previously also teamed up with Japanese electronics giant Sony to integrate its mobile security app in Sony Xperia mobile phones.

BKAV in August warned Vietnamese mobile users that they should care more about protecting data and accounts on their smartphones as most users purchase, sell, lend or borrow smartphones, but still keep their accounts saved on their phones.

This opened up the risk of losing important information such as photos, messages, emails, contacts and so on, the company said.

Established in 1995 by a group of IT lecturers from Ha Noi Polytechnic University, BKAV was ranked on Gartner's "cool vendor" list in June, which ranks top IT companies in emerging markets.

Viet Nam's mobile security market is dominated by local firms BKAV and CMC, and Kaspersky Lab from Russia. — VNS