BKAV, a well known Internet security solution provider in Vietnam, has warned that it has found a sharp increase in the number of spam emails; which, assuming the names of famous express delivery companies in the world such as DHL and Post Express, were sent to email users in Vietnam in April.

According to BKAV, the emails sent to Vietnamese email users under the false names had similar content: “The parcel sent to your home address. And it will arrive within 3 business days. More information and the tracking number are attached in the document below”.

BKAV’s experts say that if decompressing the attached file, users will see the files with the suffix “.doc” or “.pdf”. In fact, these are the malicious codes hidden under the icons of file “.doc” or “.pdf”. Meanwhile, it is difficult to recognize that these are malicious codes.

Vu Ngoc Son, Research and Development (R&D) Director of BKAV, said that most computers have been put at the default mode which does not show file extension. Moreover, the icons make people think that these are normal documents. Therefore, email users can be easily fooled.

The latest report by BKAV shows that at least 7500 computers in Vietnam have been infected with the “express service” virus. When the virus is activated, it will hold the control over computers, blackmail or turn the infected computers into the tools which send spam to other computers.

BKAV has advised computer users to set up the computers under the mode which allows showing the file extension, in order to easily recognize malicious codes. It has also said that it would be better to set up copyrighted antivirus software.

Windows 7 could be attacked

Since the day of launching, Windows 7 has shown its outstanding capability in terms of security in comparison with “Windows XP”, the “brother”. Microsoft is believed to install advanced security technologies in order to improve the protection ability. Therefore, though some people think that Windows 7 could also be attacked through its holes, there have been no experiments to prove the thing.

However, BKAV’s experts recently have carried out experiments and have come to a conclusion that hackers can attack Windows 7 to exploit the holes and hijack the system. As such, with Windows 7, the security risk still exists.

“Though it is safer with Windows 7 than Windows XP, you still need to follow basic principles in security. You should not run the software if you do not know about their origins, and you should not access to unfamiliar websites,” said Nguyen Minh Duc, Internet Security Director of BKAV.

“Whether your computer is safe would much depend on you. Technologies or operation system cannot replace people,” he added.

BKAV has also suggested that computer users should regularly update the error fixing versions of the operation systems, as well as the software applications installed on computers. Especially, computer users should use licensed anti-virus software.

According to BKAV, at least 182 websites of agencies and enterprises in Vietnam were hacked in April. Of these, six cases were caused by domestic hackers, while foreign hackers attacked in the other 176 cases.

In April, BKAV detected 3324 new computer virus lines which appeared in Vietnam. The viruses were infected to 5,871,000 computers. The kind of virus which was spread to most of computers was W32.AutoRunUSB.Worm with 310,000 computers reportedly infected.