Computer virus attacks have cost Vietnamese computer users an average of 327 billion VND (18 million USD) since January 2008 to Aril of this year, according to a survey by the Bach Khoa Internetwork Security Centre (BKIS).

The centre said that 97 percent of computers in Vietnam had been attacked by computer viruses at least once, and the main source of infection was the use of a universal serial bus (NSB) device.

The security center, which developed the widely used Hyperlink “ http.//news.cnet. com/8301-17938 – 105-10109507-1.html ”BKAV antivirus software, said that 90 percent of users had to reinstall their operating with viruses.

Many people had lost important data and incomplete documents.

BKIS pointed out that many users, however, did not know how to deal with virus attacks properly.

The Hanoi-based antivirus vendor’s survey showed that 49 percent of users often asked for help from their friends or fixed the problem by themselves when they encountered a computer virus attack.

But most users, who lack sufficient knowledge, should ask for help from antivirus software firms and use copyrighted antivirus software.

According to BKIS’s statistics over 70 percent of users did not often or never lock their computers after leaving the working table, which made them vulnerable to secretly installted malicious code.

BKIS also said people should create strong passwords, including both characters and numbers, and should not use the same password for many different accounts in order to avoid being traced by hackers.

Users also were advised to up-data patches thoroughly, because a hole can also be exploited by hackers to attack and control an entire computer.

According to the survey, 318 websites of governmental agencies and enterprises have been hacked, of which 215 cases were caused by local hackers and the remaining by foreigners.

Several holes have been discovered on 74 websites of enterprises, banks, online newspapers and governmental agencies.

For the first four months of this year, there were 15,.54 known computer viruses in Vietnam , of which 15,.38 came from foreign countries, and 16 from Vietnam .

Viruses have infected computers in the country 21,486,000 million times since January of this year.

ꦰ The W32. VomoF.PE. infected 418,000 machines the highest number of any virus./.