Malware rampant in Viet Nam

Computer worm Stuxnet, which exploited a shortcut handling error in Windows, was mostly detected on computers in Viet Nam, reported Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday.

About 42.45 per cent of Vietnamese computers were infected with the malware, followed by India (11.7 per cent), Indonesia (9.43 per cent), Brazil (5.52 per cent) and Algeria (3.74 per cent).

Stuxnet worm exploited CVE-2010-2568, an error in processing shortcuts in Windows that enabled the download of the random dynamic library without the user's knowledge. The worm affects Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well as Windows Server 2003 and 2008.


Appearing in the summer of 2010, Stuxnet was designed specifically to sabotage the uranium enrichment processes at several factories in Iran. In the autumn of 2010, Microsoft released a security update which patched this vulnerability.

However, Kaspersky Lab's detection systems still spot millions of cases in which the malware exploits the vulnerability. The company said that there were 19 million users encountering this threat from November 2013 to June 2014.

Research showed that Viet Nam, India and Algeria are listed as countries with most CVE-2010-2568 detections, and among the leaders in terms of the numbers of users still using Windows XP.

The operating system took first place for detections with 64.19 per cent, while Windows 7, currently the most widely used in the world, is second with 27.99 per cent. Windows Server 2008 and 2003 are third and fourth with 3.99 per cent and 1.58 per cent, respectively.

The company's experts said that most of the detections stemmed from poorly maintained servers without regular updates or a security solution. They asked users to update their software regularly, delete unused software and use a reliable security solution equipped with technologies to counteract cyber attacks.