Unsecured websites and spyware were the two most serious cyber problems last year, the Back Khoa Anti-virus Centre has said in a report.

More than 2,200 organisations and companies' websites were hacked, nearly the same number as the year before.

The two reasons for this were a shortage of online security experts and the professional limitations of existing experts.

Spyware had developed as the latest crime methodology and organisations and firms had to be aware of the dangers of losing secret information to spyware.

Microsoft Office was thought to be safe from viruses in the past but the situation had changed.

Facebook offered hackers a big opportunity since the number of users was increasing inexorably. Malware had moved from Yahoo Messenger to Facebook.

But most viruses spread through downloading of fake Youtube files.

Smartphone viruses were no longer a future threat, with the kinds of viruses increasing nine times to 34,000.

It would be the trend of the future with both smartphone numbers and software for them exploding.

Security for smartphones needed to be enhanced since many kinds of frauds came to notice.

But the sharp increase in demand for security software for smartphones would enable hackers to take advantage.

Every day around 9.8 million spam messages were sent to users and telecom service providers earned VND3 billion (US$145,000) from them.

The most serious problem was that mobile phones could be tapped easily since many wire-tapping programmes were sold online.

Users should not let other people use their mobile phones to avoid [this].

In 2013 industrial espionage through the use of online viruses would become a lucrative new industry.

VNA