Human error caused about 62 percent of the internet security failures in Vietnam in 2013, said an industry report.

According to the Vietnam Information Security Association, 52 percent of the internet security failures were professional errors and 10 percent were due to the lack of professional ethics.

The association blamed it on the absence of professional security IT staff in government organisations and businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

Meanwhile, IT security training in Vietnam is still on a small scale with a limited number of training centres and colleges.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, in order to increase the quality and quantity of IT security professionals, the government early this year issued Decision 99, which drew a road map for the development of an IT security force towards 2020.

According to the plan, eight leading universities and colleges have been selected to focus on IT security training, while the government will send 300 lecturers to study IT security abroad.

Meanwhile, 10,000 IT employees in government organisations will be retrained with a focus on IT security.

Vietnam ranked 12th in the list of countries facing the maximum cyber attacks in 2013, according to the Internet Security Threat report (ISTR19) released by the Symantec Corporation.

Symantec said Vietnam jumped nine spots in the list because of the rapidly increasing number of mobile internet subscribers and users who lack good cyber security skills.-VNA