Vietnam considers digital platforms as a way to accelerate national digital transformation, considering cybersecurity a key factor to create digital trust and Institutional reform the decisive factor for digital transformation.
Vietnam Security Summit 2020 was held in Hanoi on November 10 by the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission and the Ministry of Information and Communications. Featuring the theme ‘Cybersecurity in the AI and Big data era’, the summit shed light on the latest security trends and considerations for digital governments and modern-day enterprises, including national critical infrastructure defence, next-gen enterprise cyber protection and customers’ data assurance.
Digital transformation has led to an increase in the number of internet of things devices and generated a large amount of data. While data had become an important resource of the country, of each organisation and individuals, the risks of information and data theft and destruction were also increasing.
Cyber attackers have exploited the strengths of artificial intelligence and big data in cyber-attack techniques and malware has become increasingly sophisticated with phishing technology based on artificial intelligence.
“Reality shows that we are facing increasingly dangerous and sophisticated cyber attacks. Each agency, organisation, business and user must always be ready to respond to threats in cyberspace,” said Vice Chairman of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission Nguyen Duc Hien.
Sharing the same viewpoint, Colonel Nguyen Dang Luc, Vice Chairman of the Government Cipher Committee, said cyber-attacker and criminals of late have become emboldened enough to steal state confidential information, data and destroy information systems. Increasingly cybercriminals and reactionary organisations had been proliferated and gained the technical expertise to cause serious consequences, threatening social order and safety, political stability and national security.
From the perspective of the Ministry of Information and Communications, Nguyen Khac Lich, Deputy Director of the Authority of Information Security under the Ministry of Information and Communication, said the current risk of information security was significant to the extent that it would affect the entire economy. “Cyber attacks are getting more sophisticated, more fierce, more dangerous,” said Lich.
At the summit, the representative of the Authority of Information Security reviewed some outstanding results in the work of ensuring information security in Vietnam. Specifically, Vietnam’s ranking of the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) in accordance with the assessment of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) had positive changes last year. The country ranked 50 out of 193 countries, 11th in Asia-Pacific and fifth in ASEAN.
Sharing about the strategy to implement cybersecurity, Lich said, “If we want our nation to become a powerful country in cybersecurity, in the group of 30 leading countries in GCI index by 2030, we need to focus on development in accordance with five main pillars including legal, technical, organising, capacity building, and co-operation.”
Along with that, Lich also raised other major plans to ensure information security in the coming time, which include information safety in digital transformation, protecting users on cyberspace, promoting the implementation of the four-class model in the organisations and identifying human as the main orientation of ensuring information safety.
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The Vietnam government strongly believes that ensuring safety in cyberspace will accelerate the process of national digital transformation as it is the key to a successful and sustainable digital transformation.
