If Googling keywords related to betting and gambling, and ‘gov.vn’, users can easily find websites with the suffix ‘.gov.gn’ of state management agencies that have been hacked and inserted with ad links.

Vu Ngoc Son from NCS said this is a new attack method used in Vietnam. Hackers exploit holes on websites, hijack the administration rights, and change and edit the source codes of websites. They can post, link or even redirect access to advertisements and gambling content.

The systems with ineffective configurations can be targets for hackers. From the hole of a website, hackers can obtain the right to administer the host server, thereby attacking other websites of the same server. 

NCS said the security firm has received complaints from agencies and businesses that their websites have gambling and betting ads inserted by others. 

The danger is that the websites all use ‘https’ certified as officially belonging to state agencies and large enterprises, but when clicking the links, users are redirected to websites of online betting and gambling organizations. 

AIS has reported about the problem. Through the monitoring system, the agency continues to find that Vietnam’s public information systems are regularly facing threats and cyberattack campaigns. 

According to AIS, by mid-March, of 14,000 websites, with 6,900 websites with ‘.gov.vn’, at least 90 websites had been exploited.

These included 67 websites under the management of 30 cities and provinces and 23 under the management of 12 cities and provinces. The unreasonable content was displayed in Google search results.

AIS experts said this is not a new problem. Agencies warned about this a long time ago, but checking and implementation of measures to handle it have been inappropriate.

“The situation is very dangerous if websites are exploited by opposition influences in order to distribute malicious and distorted content about the Party’s guidelines, and the State’s policies and laws,” AIS said. 

AIS has released a document, requesting IT and cybersecurity units to check websites under their management to discover and delete unreasonable content. 

Administrators have been told to pay attention to newly created files, or files with different time-creation dates from the majority of other files in the same folders.

Trong Dat