AI increases the risk of cyberattacks exponentially

At the Vietnam Information Security Day 2024 Conference and Exhibition held on November 21 in Hanoi, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Bui Hoang Phuong said that 2024 marks a great step forward for Vietnam in the field of information security, demonstrated by rising to 17th place out of 194 countries in the global cybersecurity ranking.

The number of cyber attacks in the first nine months of the year decreased by 55% compared to the same period last year. The national monitoring system processed more than 10.5 billion messages, successfully blocked more than 14,552 malicious websites, and protected the safety of more than 11.32 million users.

Online fraud is still complicated with hundreds of thousands of reports. The fact that more than 90% of surveillance cameras are of foreign origin is raising concerns about national data security. Notably, our cyber security human resources are still quite modest with about 38,000 people, mainly concentrated in the private sector.

Along with that growth rate, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Bui Hoang Phuong also emphasized, "cyber attacks are continuously developing with increasingly sophisticated levels of complexity, especially with the support of AI, the risks we face will increase exponentially.

Therefore, all agencies and organizations need to continuously improve information security capacity, proactively deploy information security assurance plans and maintain this work continuously."

2024 is considered the year of universalizing digital infrastructure, promoting the use of national digital platforms used uniformly nationwide and at each local level, contributing to improving data management capacity.

Information security must be given top priority. All important databases and national digital platforms must be protected according to the provisions of the Law on Information Security and the Law on Cyber Security.

According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung - Chairman of VNISA, ensuring network information security for data infrastructure and national digital platforms is also protecting national cyberspace and contributing to building a safe and solid foundation for digital transformation.

With such importance, ensuring security and safety for data infrastructure and digital platforms needs to be taken into consideration right from the beginning of construction, with the principle of ensuring safety at the highest level.

Ensuring information security must always go hand in hand with building and developing data infrastructure and digital platforms. This is also the responsibility of agencies, organizations and information technology and information security enterprises operating in Vietnam.

Within the framework of the program is the launching ceremony of the Information Security Exercise Support Platform.

Speaking at the event, the leader of the Ministry of Information and Communications also proposed a number of key solutions to protect data infrastructure and national digital platforms in the coming period:

Build and perfect the legal system on protecting national critical digital infrastructure. Agencies and organizations must review and evaluate the overall status of information systems and deploy security at each level. Especially with national digital platforms, the principle must be strictly followed: if the system is not secure, it must not be put into use.

Build a monitoring and early warning system for national digital infrastructure. Agencies and organizations need to increase investment in information security, especially automatic cyber attack detection and prevention systems, and artificial intelligence applications. According to the Prime Minister 's directive, it is necessary to ensure that at least 10% of the IT budget is spent on information security.

Organize effective, substantial, regular and continuous implementation of information security assurance work according to the 4-layer model, especially improving the capacity of the professional monitoring and protection layer and maintaining continuous and stable connection and information sharing with the National Monitoring Center.

Develop an incident response plan for information systems under management as prescribed. Implement a plan to periodically back up the system and important data to promptly restore system operations in the event of a cyber attack, especially data encryption.

Regularly and continuously use the Information Security Platforms developed and provided by the Ministry of Information and Communications to support agencies, organizations and businesses, including: Platform for management and detection, early warning of information security risks, Vietnam Information Security Drill Platform.

Chi Hieu

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