A cybersecurity emergency response center has been set up in Vietnam, with offices in the three major cities of the country.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has established the Vietnam Cybersecurity Emergency Response Teams/Coordination Center (VNCERT/CC), it said in an article published on its website on Monday.

The center is located in Hanoi and it has two branches in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang.

It is formed on the restructuring of the Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Center and the Vietnam Information Security Testing Center.

The new center is charged with responding to security incidents and checking information security nationwide while preventing spam emails and messages, among others.

“It is also responsible for testing and evaluating information safety for hardware, software, information systems, and information safety management and operation systems in accordance with the law,” the article reads.

Vietnam has suffered more than 7,000 cyberattacks in the year to date, the Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT) was quoted as saying in the article, which elaborated that the number included some 2,500 phishing and 4,200 deface attacks.

On June 12, 2018, Vietnam passed a 43-article cybersecurity law which regulates all activities that “protect national security and ensure public safety and order on the Internet.”

In effect on January 1, 2019, the law requires all foreign providers of Internet-related services to open representative offices and data centers in Vietnam, where information of Vietnam-based users must be stored, in order to continue offering their services to local users.

An article in the law grants the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security the power to demand access to any organization or company’s data system for investigation in cases where there is a perceived threat to national security and public safety. 

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