Facing advancement of science and technology, especially the Fourth Industrial Revolution, cyberspace has become increasingly important to development of all nations. Besides advantages, cyberspace poses potential risks to military, national defence, and protection of the Fatherland. Development and extensive application of achievements of information technology and the Internet to all fields have brought about rapid development of weapons and military equipment, which is making fundamental changes in military, national defence, and warfare. Therefore, firm control and protection of national sovereignty and information safety in cyberspace are presssing requirements of every country.

The 386th Centre, 86th Command, is one of the key units in charge of controlling and defending national sovereignty in cyberspace, ensuring technology and information safety for units in Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands, and actively preparing all resources needed for cyber operations, which contributes to protecting the Fatherland from afar. This is a new, extremely complex, and arduous task. Meanwhile, the unit is in the process of consolidating its facilities and strengthening of organisations and staffing. Thus, the human resource, living condition, and equipment remain difficult, posing many challenges to the Centre. 

Lt. Gen. Le Quang Minh, Deputy Chief of the General Political Department visits the Centre

More importantly, recently, there have been more and more deliberate cyber attacks on the critical information system of the country. Of note, large-scale cyber espionage campaigns have been carried out by means of subtle tricks and many new variants of malicious software on the network of military computers. Many military documents risk being leaked over the Internet as a result of getting infected with malware. In Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands, hostile forces exploit cyberspace to disseminate malicious information to distort democracy, human rights, and religion in our country with a view to creating flashpoints, doing damage to the Party and State, inciting “self-evolution” and “self-transformation,” depoliticising the military, and so forth.

On grasping the guiding principle of “proactiveness, flexibility, secrecy, surprise, intelligence, and creativity,” the Centre Party Committee and Commanders focus on leading and directing adoption of many breakthrough solutions and leverage of overall power for establishing a robust, uninterrupted, secret operational posture in cyberspace. Departments and units popularise directives, plans, and instructions of higher echelons aimed at raising cadres’, employees’, and soldiers’ awareness of combat readiness. They seriously maintain duties of combat guarding and work closely with other forces in the military and civilian sector in the area to implement operational plans in cyberspace and protect major political events of the Party, State, and military as well as important holidays of the country. Departments and units cooperate closely with forces of the 5th Military Region, 3rd Army Corps, 3rd Brigade of the Military Security Protection Department, and 35th Steering Committee of provincial, municipal party committees in the area to have a good understanding of situation in cyberspace and hostile forces’ acts of sabotage, which provides the foundation for developing plans to struggle against alien influences on Viet Nam

Cooperation and support for the 35th Steering Committee of provincial, municipal party committees in the area to safeguard the Party’s ideological foundation and struggle against false, hostile perspectives in cyberspace are a key task that draws effective leadership and direction from the Centre Party Committee and Commanders. The Centre has proactively signed collaborative programmes with the 35th Steering Committee of all 14 provincial, municipal party committees in the area. Accordingly, the programmes are implemented seriously and effectively; reviewed periodically in order to draw lessons learnt. Special importance is attached to joint propagation aimed at raising awareness of this task. Transfer of software and technical solutions in support of the 35th Steering Committee of provincial, municipal party committees in the cause of safeguarding the Party’s ideological foundation and struggling against incorrect, hostile perspectives in cyberspace are carried out effectively with high quality. The Centre proactively rejects malicious information and uploads thousands of articles and videos to guides public opinions on fan pages; posts thousands of comments to oppose adverse articles in many social networks. It actively establishes information channels and accounts of social networks and writes articles about defending the Party’s ideological foundation while rejecting incorrect, hostile perspectives in a flexible, timely, effective manner; dilutes and rejects negative, harmful information to create a healthy, positive, cultural environment of social networks. The Centre usually conducts reconnaissance to detect, assess, and classify types of information; issues early warnings about sources of unlawful information; proactively supervises, prevents, and stops the disclosure of military documents on the Internet.

Checking information security for units in the area

Furthermore, the Centre adopts measures to strengthen defence and protect information in a flexible, creative manner. Accordingly, it attaches importance to solutions aimed at enhancing cyber defence of military units in the area; proactively signs the collaborative regulation with Department of Information and Communications of localities to promote the effectiveness of ensuring information safety and help these units to deal with limitation of cyber infrastructure and application servers. The Centre successfully tests applications, services, and portals on the Military Data Transmission Network in order to timely detect and address security vulnerabilities. It pays constant attention to dispatch of cyber defence forces to force-on-force exercises to strengthen their combat power to meet requirements in any situations. In 2023, the Centre cooperated with the Departments of Information and Communication of Da Nang, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Ninh Thuan, Dak Lak, and Kon Tum to carry out a force-on-force exercise. Many vulnerabilities were identified through the exercise, thus timely securing network systems of departments and units in the area. During the DK-23 and TC-23 exercises, the Centre’s network system successfully stopped cyberattacks without suffering any incidents. Hundreds of documents relating to cyber operations were transmitted through the system in a safe, secure, and effective manner.

On grasping and seriously implementing resolutions and directives of higher echelons, the Centre focuses on supervising and ensuring information safety in the area. First of all, it attaches importance to propaganda with a view to raising party committees’ and leaders’ awareness of ensuring information safety and cyber security; well performs the task of controlling and searching for the risk of information insecurity on the military computer network; develops exemplary units in terms of information safety in the area. The Centre also establishes the network access control in departments and units that have necessary conditions of technical infrastructure and information management systems for the military computer network. Of note, special importance is attached to information security in tactical- and operational-level units in order to timely detect, prevent, and deal with computers infected with malware. The Centre also actively cooperates with departments and units in the military and civilian sector in the area on reviewing, controlling, and adopting measures to ensure information safety. A malware prevention system has been developed by providing applied software and safe memory sticks for every workstation and server at the Centre itself and in most units so far. The Central has also identified over 96% of information technology equipment and upgraded the control system in all units in the area. It usually attaches importance to information safety check for devices before they are put into operation in military departments and units in the area, thereby timely detecting security vulnerabilities and malware. In 2023, the Centre carried out six inspections of information safety and cybersecurity with nearly 760 information technology devices of eight units, thus detecting and handling 69 devices infected with malware and two systems with security vulnerabilities.

To strive for building the electronic Government in the Ministry of National Defence as directed by the higher echelons, the Centre proactively steps up establishment of the electronic Government and supports military departments and units in the area to carry out digital transformation as planned. It takes charge of coordinating the building and installation of applications for common use in military units in the area, which contributes to promotion of digital transformation, administrative reform, and increased quality of command and control at all levels. Accordingly, the Centre actively instructs and helps military departments and units in the area to conduct data transformation and installation of software used for managing electronic document and records with digital signatures as well as software applied to competitions, tabletop exercises, objective assessment, video conferencing, and so on. It also cooperates with functional departments and units on regularly testing military data transmission network connection quality at all test points.

Although there remain many difficulties and challenges, given high political resolution, the spirit to overcome difficulties and challenges, leverage of intelligence and creativity, and great concentration anytime and anywhere, cadres and soldiers of the 386th Centre always grasp situations deeply, offer timely advice, and successfully respond to potential contingencies without being passive and surprised in operations; ensure information safety for department and units in the military and civilian sector in the area, contributing to the building of a healthy, humanitarian, safe cyber environment and firm protection of national sovereignty in cyberspace.

Colonel, Doctor HO NGOC DUY, Chief of the Centre