Vietnam Securities Broker Suffers Cyberattack That Suspended Trading

VNDirect, one of Vietnam's largest brokerages, over the past few hours began the process of restoring its systems after a cyberattack last weekend that forced it to suspend trading transactions.

Few details have been disclosed about the cyberattack, but VNDirect's CEO said attackers encrypted the brokerage's data. "VNDirect was attacked by a group of professional hackers who encrypted our company data. We have now completed decrypting the blocked data and [are] starting to restore the system," Nguyen Vu Long, CEO of VNDirect told a local media outlet. 

Meanwhile, a government financial official said the attack only affected VNDirect and no other financial organizations. "We do not see risk of contagion," Pham Hong Son, the vice chairman of Vietnam's State Securities Commission (SSC), told Reuters.

In a social media post, VNDirect described a four-stage process of restoration, starting with customer accounts, which is now complete, and followed by restoring floor trading and then its other financial services.

This is the latest high-profile cyber threat aimed at Vietnam's financial industry. Some 50 Vietnamese financial organizations were targeted in August 2022 with an Android Trojan dubbed GoldDigger.