At the end of the session on March 29, Chairman of VNDirect Securities Corporation (VND) Pham Minh Huong had a message after the securities company's system was attacked since last weekend.

Accordingly, Ms. Pham Minh Huong apologized for the cyber attack that interrupted and stopped transactions to customers in recent days and thanked investors and customers for their patience, companionship and sympathy.

Ms. Huong said that on March 24, international hackers attacked VNDirect's technology system encryption.

The chairman admitted that he had invested heavily in building an information technology system, but VNDirect's team, despite being very skilled, still lacked experience in preventing and stopping sophisticated cyber attacks on such an international scale.

Chairwoman Pham Minh Huong speaks out after VNDirect was attacked. Photo: Hoang Ha.

“We were surprised in the early days and had to seek support from leading Vietnamese technology experts and companies, as well as relevant state agencies,” Ms. Huong shared.

Through this major incident, Ms. Huong affirmed that she was fully aware that, despite developing rapidly like any other business in the industry in Vietnam, in addition to focusing on developing products and features to serve customers, she cannot neglect the most important task of protecting the system against increasingly sophisticated attacks by digital criminals.

Currently, information security is a very serious problem on a global scale, especially for financial and banking organizations. Malicious software of criminal organizations is constantly upgraded, always the latest versions, extremely complex encryption, capable of causing serious impacts on technology systems.

VNDirect's Chairman said that although the entire system and data have been restored, the information security review process to ensure safe connection conditions will take a lot more time.

This attack is a breach of virtualization system control and encryption keys, not a breach of customer databases and data.

According to Ms. Huong, VNDirect still has some steps to overcome. In addition, during the process, this securities company must simultaneously increase security, patch vulnerabilities and grasp key issues to protect security in the future. The authorities are closely controlling, ensuring the system is absolutely safe when reconnecting with the two exchanges.

VNDirect has successfully completed the transaction flow on the simulated environment at 9:00 p.m. on March 28. This securities company is completing procedures with the information security management agency to officially connect with the two exchanges HOSE and HNX, expected on March 29.

VNDirect is expected to reopen stock trading activities next Monday, April 1.

VNDirect's Chairman also shared that he is researching appropriate support policies and will notify investors as soon as possible.

VNDirect Securities is expected to resume trading from April 1. VNDirect Securities' trading system is expected to resume operations from April 1 after being restored from the afternoon of March 27 and reviewing and evaluating the system to ensure security and safety.