A Microsoft survey has found that Vietnam is among the countries most vulnerable to a mass cyber attacks; nearly half of computers were found to contain malware.

The SIR v16, or Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report volume 16, was released recently showing that 49.22 percent of at least 100,000 computers in Vietnam were infected with malicious codes.

A Microsoft survey has found that Vietnam is among the countries most vulnerable to a mass cyber attacks; nearly half of computers were found to contain malware.

The SIR v16, or Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report volume 16, was released recently showing that 49.22 percent of at least 100,000 computers in Vietnam were infected with malicious codes.

Trojan was the most common of those codes (found in 23 percent of computers surveyed) followed by Worm (17.5 percent) and Downloader (13.9 percent).

Vietnam was listed among the five countries with the highest encounter rates in the world, along with Pakistan, Algeria, Indonesia and India. The Nordic countries and Japan continued to be the healthiest locations in the world.

The report pointed out that ten of every 1,000 Vietnamese websites were fraudulent and that nearly 36 of those dispersed malicious codes that could be spread to the computers visiting them. The rates were both above the global average.

Vo Do Thang, director of Athena Center for Network Security Training, told Tuoi Tre that Vietnam has become a lucrative market for cyber crime and malware as the public’s sense of data security and privacy remains far behind the growing use of the internet and social networks.

Nguyen Hong Phuc, a network security expert, said the habit of using pirated or cracked software and data contributes to the risks of being infected by malware.

Phuc said many computer retailers set up multiple computers at the same time using computer ghosting (which involves setting up the operating system, drivers, software, and patches on a single computer, then automatically replicating this same setup on other computers), using specialized software.

He said the process usually involves spreading pirated software and at the same time malicious codes.

“Most of those codes were deliberately embedded before the software was uploaded onto the Internet.”

Tim Rains, who manages security marketing and corporate communications in the Trustworthy Computing division of Microsoft, said the company’s new research showed a shift in cyber crime: from hacking into software errors to scamming users to download malware embedded in legitimate content like software, games and music.

“The continued increase in deceptive tactics is striking; in the last quarter of 2013, the number of computers impacted as a result of deceptive tactics more than tripled,” Rains said in a Microsoft blog post.

It was the top threat in 105 of the 110 countries and territories researched.