Vietnam Both Victim & Source of Massive DDoS attacks

Vietnam ranks 6th in global DDoS Attack Source Distribution behind China, US, France, Russia and Brazil.

A cybersecurity conference titled “Protect Networks and Downstreams from DDoS Attacks on Organizations and Enterprises” is being held for the first time in Vietnam by the Authority of Information Security, VietnamNet Newspaper under the Ministry of Information and Communications in cooperation with Nexusguard.

The conference aims to raise the awareness among service providers and government agencies and organisation of the DDoS attack trends and update them on the latest mitigation technologies and law enforcement matters as Vietnam continues to transform itself into a smart nation. Nexusguard will share and update the latest DDoS threats amid growing connectivity and adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as well as its solutions to prevent DDoS attacks from taking a toll on CSP networks and downstreams.

Citing statistics of the National Cyber Security Center under the Authority, Mr Nguyen Huy Dung, Acting Director of Authority of Information and Security said the number of cyberattacks leading to network glitches decreased significantly between mid-2018 and the first quarter of 2019 after safety and cybersecurity measures had been significantly deployed. In particular, the number of attacks on networks in Vietnam and number of IP address in botnets drastically decreased in the first quarter of 2019.

“One of the key tasks of the Ministry of Information and Communications is to formulate a national strategy to ensure a safe cyberspace for Vietnam by 2021, issue cybersecurity directives by 2025, and propose setting up an SOC for ASEAN. The Ministry of Information and Communications has set clear goals for 2019: To create and foster a cybersecurity market, nurture local cybersecurity companies to safeguard the networks for the Party, the nation’s mission-critical agencies and organizations, and to become the SOC of ASEAN,” Mr. Dung noted.

“We are honored to co-host this cybersecurity conference with the AIS and ICTNews for the first time to share our knowledge and expertise in DDoS attack detection and mitigation with network security professionals. With a strong presence in Asia, we have been protecting governments, communications service providers (CSPs) and enterprises from DDoS attacks for over a decade,” says Mr Andy Ng, Nexusguard’s CEO. “Through this event, we wish to enhance cybersecurity awareness in Vietnam as the country seeks to create a safe cyberspace and transforms itself into a smart nation. We look forward to working with the country’s CSPs to ensure the 24x7 accessibility of mission-critical services.”

The Q4 2018 Threat Report of Nexusguard identifies the threats DDoS attacks pose to Vietnam in particular, such as: Vietnam now ranks No. 6 in the global attack source country list behind China, the US, France, Russia and Brazil. Botnets in Brazil and Vietnam were both responsible for 3.53%, respectively, on global DDoS attacks in Q4 2018. Closer to home, Vietnam ranks No. 2 in the APAC attack source country list, accounting for 9.52% of DDoS attacks logged in the region, behind China and ahead of India and Indonesia. Behind the US, China, France, Vietnam ranks No. 4 in the global attack source country ranking by Autonomous System Number (ASN), accounting for 2.29%.

Earlier, Nexusguard’s “Q3 2018 Threat Report” revealed the emergence of an extremely stealthy distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack pattern targeting CSPs such as telco operators, internet service providers (ISPs) and data centers. This new attack technique exploits the large attack surface of ASN-level CSPs by spreading tiny attack traffic across hundreds of IP addresses in order to evade detection. Coined as “bit-and-piece” attack, this type of stealthy network attack not only affects the CSP network but also enterprises, government agencies and organizations underneath, causing extra latency to content/service delivery and even outages.

The ongoing evolution of DDoS methods suggests that CSPs need to enhance their network security posture and find more effective ways to protect their critical infrastructure and tenants. The continued discovery of new attack patterns should also alert enterprises to the importance of selecting DDoS-proof service providers.