More than 300 businesses in Vietnam have eliminated pirated software and replaced it with legalised software on 20,000 computers. Ho Chi Minh City is pioneering this activity, a press release has stated.
Vietnamese businesses improved their cybersecurity situation and obeyed the law by eliminating illegal software and replacing it with licensed programs after the software alliance BSA launched a campaign to legalise software in ASEAN last September.
The campaign aimed at providing information and knowledge to CEOs about the risks related to the use of pirated software, including network security holes and financial losses due to copyright infringement. It persuades them to proactively comply with the law before examinations are carried out.
The latest report of BSA showed that in the last six months, more than 300 businesses legalised the software they use.
Most of them are in HCM City, while the remaining are in 12 other cities/provinces, including Hanoi, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Hai Phong, Vinh Phuc, Hung Yen, Lam Dong, An Giang, Quang Tri, Bac Ninh, Thanh Hoa, and Ba Ria – Vung Tau.
However, thousands of businesses in Vietnam continue to use illegal software, and CEOs in Vietnam need to address the ongoing use of illegal software, the release noted.
The results will not only benefit the Vietnamese business circle in particular but society in general. Illegal software puts businesses at risk of security holes.
In the finance and banking sectors, technology and e-commerce in Vietnam are particularly at risk because personal customer’s data is stored in businesses’ information technology system.
Therefore, BSA is drawing up plans to legalise software in these sectors and also in the country’s high-tech industries in Vietnam.
Consumer protection groups should be aware that illegal software jeopardises the protection of user’s privacy. Among the risks related to unlicensed software, unauthorised access by hackers and loss of data all have a direct impact on consumer safety.
BSA praised Vietnamese authorities, including the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, for their efforts to inspect businesses using illegal parts nationwide.
In 2019, the Ministry conducted tens of inspection tours and found violations at Vietnamese and foreign-invested corporations.
The proportion of enterprises using unlicensed software was 74% in Vietnam, according to a survey by BSA in 2018, higher than the 57% in the Asia Pacific.
In January 2018, copyright infringement became a legal violation in Vietnam. For commercial legal entities, the penalty may be up to VN 3 billion (around US$ 129,745) or suspension from operation for up to two years.
As OpenGov reported earlier, the number of internet-borne cyber threats in the fourth quarter of 2019 decreased by more than 50% compared to the same period in 2018.
As per a report, attacking through browsers was the chief method that cybercriminals used to spread malicious programmes. The number of detections of web threats in Vietnam in Q4 2019 decreased by about 53% from nearly 27.5 million in Q4 2018.
The countries with the lowest number of users attacked by web-borne threats in Q4 2019 in Southeast Asia were Singapore and Thailand, with 12.3% and 17.9%, respectively.
