Vietnam lost VND 5,900 billion because of computer viruses

On February 28, Bkav announced that the harmful effects of computer viruses in Vietnam in 2010 were about VND 5,900 billion.

Results are drawn from an independent survey program implemented by Bkav in January 2011.

The level of damage is calculated based on the income of the computer user and their work time is interrupted due to problems caused by computer viruses.

According to Bkav, on average, each computer user in Vietnam has lost VND 1,192,000 in 2010. With at least 5 million computers being used regularly in the country, the damage caused by the virus in 2010 amounted to VND 5,900 billion.

Also in 2010, 93% of computers in Vietnam were infected at least once. This situation has improved compared to previous years (about 97%).

USB continues to be one of the most common sources of virus infection. Up to 96% of respondents said their USB has been infected with virus in the past year.

The good news is that users are alerted to links sent via chat or email. Survey results show that the percentage of users who easily click on strange links is only 10%.

Mr. Nguyen Minh Duc, Director of Bkav's Network Security Division, said: ' Up to 67% of respondents said they would confirm the origin of the link if the link was sent from acquaintances and would be ignore links sent from strangers . '

However, Mr. Duc also said that 53% of users did not pay adequate attention to password protection.

' Users need to create strong passwords such as 9 characters or more, use a combination of numbers, lowercase letters, uppercase letters and symbols (eg: @, #, $,%, ^, &, *). In addition, passwords cannot be provided to anyone or written somewhere and should be changed often , 'Duc warned.

The expert of Bkav also ' tips ' another simple method to help protect the security of the computer is to lock the lock when not in use. Up to 63% of users are not regular or have ever performed a computer lock operation when leaving the desk, even though this operation is very simple, just press the 'Windows + L ' key combination.