Lastest news from Vietnam, Last Updated: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 12:02:10 Vietnam (GMT+07)
Internet users’ computers in danger with default modem account
About 14 percent of ADSL subscribers in Vietnam are at risk of being hacked as they have not reset their modems’ widely-known administration account information.
The Bach Khoa Network Security Center (BKIS), a network security watchdog, warned that those subscribers who were still using the default user name and password set by the modem’s manufacturers are at risk of having their computers infiltrated by illegal and often vindictive hackers.
“The modem is like the computer’s gateway to the internet, so if hackers know your modem password, they can easily control your computer,” BKIS director Nguyen Tu Quang said.
He criticized broadband service providers of being irresponsible.
“When supplying the modems to subscribers, the providers should have asked them to reset default information before use, but they did not,” Quang said.
He said that BKIS’s research estimated that some 1,400 out of nearly 10,000 subscribers of three largest broad-band Internet service providers, namely VDC, FPT and Viettel, have not reset their account information.
“In fact, there might be more [subscribers at risk] because our research was quite basic,” Quang said.
A BKIS statement warned that once hackers could control the modem, they could “steal data and personal information, install computer viruses, and control the computer.”
According to BKIS statistics, of 3.37 million computers in Vietnam infected with viruses in May, 424,000 were attacked by spyware. Spyware collects information from computers without their users’ consent. Often used for market research and/or hacking purposes, spyware infiltrates computers covertly when users visit certain shady websites.
In May there were 13 websites in Vietnam attacked by hackers, including six cases by local hackers and seven by foreign hackers.
BKIS (
www.bkav.com.vn) also detected five websites Vietnamese websites with security gaps that hackers can easily exploit.
Reported by Hoang Ly – Translated by The Vinh
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