VietNamNet Bridge – It’s necessary to prohibit to email
compressed files or the compressed files comprising “.exe” files inside in
order to minimize the risks of having email system hacked – Director of VNCERT (the
Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team) Vu Quoc Khanh has suggested.
Khanh gave a warning at the
conference discussing the method to implement the project on utilizing
information technology in the finance sector, and that a lot of email systems
of ministries and branches now contain the dangerous holes which make them easily
attacked by hackers.
Khanh stressed that even though
the email systems have been equipped with the features allowing to ensure the
security for the systems (not allowing to send“.exe” files, checking viruses in
attached files…), a lot of holes still exist that allow hackers to send fake
emails with viruses attached.
In other words, compressed files
can pave the way for hackers to attack information system.
At the conference, Khanh carried
out an experiment to prove his viewpoint. Khanh created a fake email under the
name of an officer of the information center, then sent a compressed file
(.rar) from the mail server emkey.cz, (but forging that the email was sent from
the information center) to huyxx.@mic.gov.vn.
After the attached file was
downloaded and extracted, one would get an “.exe” file with the icon like a
word file, which is very difficult to be recognized when displayed on Windows
Explorer.
With sophisticated tricks,
hackers can send fake emails with viruses to the mail severs installed with
anti-virus software as well. Computer users would mistake the file with viruses
for Word file (.doc). Therefore, they may accidentally click the dangerous
files to activate the attached viruses.
Therefore, Khanh has strongly
recommended that Vietnam should prohibit to transfer compressed files or the
compressed files with “.exe” files inside.
Khanh has also given warning
about the problems in creating and using passwords, thus paving the way for
hackers to discover passwords and hijack the systems.
He has cited the report of an
international institution as saying that Vietnamese password has been listed as
one of the three most easy-to-guess passwords in the world, just after
Indonesian and Italian. 14 percent of accounts can be exposed in passwords after
1000 times of analyzing Vietnamese dictionary, while 7.8 percent of accounts
can be exposed in passwords after analyzing the common global dictionary.
The danger hung over the email
systems run by ministries, branches and state agencies has been warned for a
long time.
Information technology experts
have said some software pieces have been designed specifically to steal the
information from ministries and branches, which can “deceive” normal anti-virus
software pieces.
They also said that most of the
applications have latent SQL Injection and XSS errors which allow hackers to
exploit information illegally, or even hijack the systems. A lot of web servers
cannot be configured well, thus creating holes for hackers to penetrate into
the systems. The bad web application development has caused a lot of serious
errors.
The Intelligence Report released
by Symantec on July 16, 2012, showed that the email-virus danger has become
serious with the alarmingly increasing number of virus-infected emails.
In May 2012, one virus was found
in every 1504 emails. Meanwhile, in June, one virus was present in every 541
emails.
However, experts believe that the
danger level in Vietnam is still lower than the global average level (one virus
in every 365.1 emails in May, and one virus in every 316.7 emails in June).
The report also pointed out that
spam emails remain unsettled. In June 2012, 64.2 emails in every 100 emails
sent were spam. However, the average proportion of the world is higher than in
Vietnam, 66.8 percent for June and 67.8 percent for May.
Compiled by Kim Mai
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com
No comments:
Post a Comment