Ensuring cybersecurity is considered a key factor for a successful and sustainable digital transformation, and at the same time, an inseparable part of digital transformation, Vice Chairman of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission Nguyen Duc Hien said at a cybersecurity summit.

Inside a Security Operation Centre in Thai Binh province

The 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 had led to an increase in the number of internet of things devices and generated a large amount of data, said Hien.

Data had become an important resource of the country and of each organisation and individual, along with that, the risks of information and data theft and destruction were increasing, Hien added.

Cyber attackers also exploited the strengths of artificial intelligence and big data in cyber-attack techniques and malware would become smarter with phishing technology based on artificial intelligence, he noted.

"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 Hien.

Sharing the same viewpoint, Colonel Nguyen Dang Luc, Vice Chairman of the Government Cipher Committee, said cyber-attacks and crime had increased recently to steal data, State confidential information and destroy information systems.

More and more cybercriminals and reactionary organisations had been established and operated sophisticatedly, causing serious consequences, threatening social order and safety, political stability and national security, he said

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 very big, which affected the entire economy.

“Cyber attacks are getting more sophisticated, more fierce, more dangerous,” said Lich.

Also 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 orientation to implement cybersecurity, Lich said: "If we want our country 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 orientations in ensuring information security in the coming time, which are ensuring 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.