Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Minh Hong said that the government has approved a draft law on information security and the National Assembly is expected to discuss the law in May and consider passing it in October. — VNA/VNS Photo Minh Quyet

The index for the government sector was 48.73 per cent, said Vu Quoc Thanh, vice chairman and general secretary of the Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA).

Thanh provided the information at the Vietnam Information Security Day 2014, an annual conference which the VNISA, Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team, the Ministry of Information and Communications' (MIC) Information Security Department and the Ministry of National Defence's Information Security Department organised here on December 4.

Thanh noted that the country's index was much lower than that of South Korea, at 62 per cent. The index was calculated based on information security environment and measures. VNISA conducted a survey on the country's information security situation among 745 organisations and enterprises from 2011 to 2014.

The survey showed that distributed denial-of-service, inserted malware and penetration were the most popular attacks.

The year 2014 witnessed rising tension on the East Sea that involved attacks on Vietnamese websites. The survey quoted 20 per cent of respondents as saying the tension directly impacted on information security while five per cent cited sovereignty as the reason for the attacks.

To ensure information security, more than 50 per cent of respondents have set passwords for their documents while nearly 40 per cent used digital certification and digital signature, and nearly 30 per cent chose coding and virtual private network (VPN).

Compared with previous years, expenditure on respondents' information security increased by a mere 4.3 per cent. Only one-third of survey respondents had their own security policies while the rest did not have any investment expectation.

Thanh also explained that cloud, mobile, social and big data would change prioritised parts of information security. Mobile digital devices have witnessed a boom in sales and have become sophisticated, resulting in difficulty of management, he observed.

"Attacks on database of organisations and individuals will be on the rise, and the nation's crucial information system will be a target in conflicts," Thanh predicted.

A Vietnamese website was under attack in May 2014. According to VNISA's survey, 20 per cent of respondents said that the rising tension in the East Sea have impacted directly on the information security. — Photo nld.com.vn

Information security law in process

At the conference, Deputy Information and Communications Minister Nguyen Minh Hong revealed that numerous Vietnamese organisations, agencies and enterprises have no measures to ensure information security and standard operating procedures to respond to attacks.

He said Viet Nam lacked legal documents and national standards on information security that made it difficult to apply management and technical measurements.

Hong added that the government has approved a law on information security that the MIC has drafted. The National Assembly is expected to discuss the law in May and consider passing it in October.

Within the framework of the conference, the organisers awarded the first and second prizes to two winning teams from the University of Information Technology under the Vietnam National University HCMC and HCMC University of Technology.

A similar conference was held in HCM City on November 19. Information management systems officers of government agencies and enterprises attended a short course on assessment and audit information systems last November. — VNS