We continue with our survey of crypto and digital currency initiatives from around the globe, all of which are officially sanctioned to enhance national competitive advantage (in the event crypto overtakes the US dollar as the global reserve currency).  It is the cumulative adoption rate of state-sanctioned crypto and digital currency legalization and regulation that will propel this innovative system for value exchange as a global currency standard. The next country, Vietnam, ranks #1 in the primary research report on which we have based our list of countries to survey: the 2nd iteration in October 2021 of Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption Index.  Vietnam is also the home to the blockchain-gaming site Axie Infinity, which was part of the  $600 Ronin Network Crypto Heist attributed to North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group. 

Vietnamese authorities have been accused by Human Rights Watch of harassing and detaining more than 170 activists over the past 20 years. Some of these activists were stopped from leaving their homes by police and others had their door locks superglued shut. The Human Rights Watch called for an end

Foxconn Technology, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that supplies products for Apple recently received a license from the Vietnamese government to build a $270 million plant in the country despite US-China tensions. The plant will manufacture Apple laptops and tablets in the Southeast Asian nation in the rural province of Bac

According to the security firm ESET, a group of unknown hackers has conducted a sophisticated supply chain attack against Vietnamese private companies and government agencies. The threat actors targeted the Government Certification Authority (VGCA) by inserting malware inside an official software toolkit. The VGCA issues digital certificates used to sign

At the request of Apple Inc., Foxconn is moving the production of iPads and MacBooks from China to Vietnam, allegedly to mitigate the risks presented by China and the Sino-US trade war. Apple is seeking to diversify its production and move a significant portion of its overseas assembly from China

According to a report released by Microsoft, Vietnamese state hackers have been deploying cryptocurrency mining malware to turn a profit off of the networks of organizations they are spying on. One group in particular was observed using this tactic, APT32. This group has been associated with several sophisticated cyber espionage

Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to search for survivors across Vietnam following a devastating Typhoon called Molave which is one of the strongest recorded in the region over the past few decades. The natural disaster has left 25 dead so far, with scores still missing. The Typhoon triggered landslides

A new report by BlackBerry shows that advanced persistent threat (APT) groups are relying on mobile malware to a much larger extent then previous research has suggested. In the context of cyber espionage campaigns, state-backed hackers increasingly use mobile malware in combination with traditional malware. Reasons for the growing use

The three biggest cyber threats to healthcare organizations are cyber espionage, data theft and destructive cyber attacks, a new FireEye report indicates. According to the study, threat actors are selling numerous compromised healthcare databases on underground forums, most of which costs less than $2,000. These databases contain the personally identifiable

Researchers with Blackberry Cylance recently studied four variants of the Ratsnif remote access Trojan used by Vietnamese advanced persistent threat (APT) group OceanLotus  (aka APT32, CobaltKitty, SeaLotus, and APT-C-00). The research shows that OceanLotus is continuously adding new capabilities to Ratsnif. The relatively unknown Trojan, which is used by OceanLotus