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Vietnam will participate with 15 other countries in exercises for cybersecurity incident responses at the 2023 ASEAN Computer Emergency Response Team (CERTS) Incident Drills (ACID). It will be held from 18-19 October.
The online programme aims to foster opportunities for collaboration and practical experience among computer emergency response teams (CERTs) tasked with addressing and resolving the diverse cybersecurity challenges in their respective countries.
This year, the programme will emphasise the most recent cyber security trends, along with detecting cyber attackers and devising solutions to address incidents. The organisers will develop multiple rehearsal scenarios tailored for participants to practice building and implementing plans aimed at handling cybersecurity incidents.
The Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT) will represent the country in these drills. Participants will be tasked with examining case-specific information and data, analysing and recognising cyberattacks, providing recommendations and warnings, mitigating the impact, preventing the incidents from spreading further, and restoring operations in the aftermath of an attack.
Hosted by Singapore since 2006, ACID is an annual exercise that aims to strengthen the cybersecurity preparedness and collaboration between CERTs in ASEAN member states, as well as five other dialogue countries, including Australia, India, China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.
This year signifies the 18th edition of the event, and Vietnam has been actively participating in these drills for all 18 years. VNCERT is a member of the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) and consists of 124 units employing 500 technicians. The centre has successfully identified millions of IP addresses that were infected and controlled by host computers located outside of Vietnam.
International collaboration has played an important part in helping Vietnam improve its cybersecurity preparedness. In 2021, VNCERT attended the ASEAN-Japan Drill to enhance global cooperation by addressing transnational cybersecurity incidents. The exercise was held in both online and in-person formats. It was connected with 200 locations across the country for IT units of ministries, agencies, provinces, and cities to join the event. It focused on coordination in dealing with cyber-attacks targeting state agencies through Virtual Private Network vulnerabilities and preventing ransomware attacks on medical institutions.
Meanwhile, domestically, the government has held several events over the years to improve internal cybersecurity preparedness among national agencies. An event was co-organised by the Authority of Information Security under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), the Cyberspace Operations Command, and the cybersecurity corporation BKAV. Over 150 information technology experts from ministries, central agencies, and local governments gathered in a symposium and participated in a cyberattack response exercise held on an e-meeting platform.
Last year, the government issued a national cybersecurity strategy to respond to challenges and crimes in cyberspace. Under it, the government committed to training and developing human resources in cybersecurity, raising awareness about cybersecurity skills, and securing funding to implement cybersecurity initiatives.
The strategy also created incident response teams for 11 priority sectors for network information security. These include transport, energy, natural resources and environment, information, health, finance, banking, defence, security, social order and safety, urban areas, and the government’s direction and administration.
In the strategy, the government claimed it would foster digital trust and build an honest, civilized, and healthy network environment. It will prevent and combat law violations in cyberspace and enhance technological mastery and autonomy to actively cope with cyberspace challenges.