The spread of WannaCry ransomware has been wreaking havoc in nearly 100 countries across the world since May 13. Aware of its danger and high affectability, Vietnamese businesses and agencies have taken various protection measures to guard against the ransomeware. In Vietnam, organisations and businesses are taking precautionary measures as Vietnam has been listed among the top 20 countries most affected by this ransomware. Dao Hong Diep and his colleagues spent all Monday morning working session to install updates and security patches and hotfixes via Windows Update. They also back up valuable data regularly. Once the computer’s data have been locked down by the ransomware, a message would appear saying that the users’ files are no longer accessible unless they pay a large sum of Bitcoin, a digital currency that ensures the transactions cannot be traced back. The Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team under the Ministry of Information and Communications has issued warnings and offered protection measures to ministries, agencies and organisations to guard against the ransomware and its variations. The organisation also recommends people to contact the team as soon as an incident occurs to promptly respond. BKAV has released a scanning toolkit to timely detect the ransomware.

On the morning of May 16, hundreds of victims were reported to have been hit by the cyber-attack.-VNA