In response to the shortage of hundreds of thousands of cyber security personnel with real – world skills, the “Open Vietnam Cyber Security Training Ground” (oVnCr) was launched as a breakthrough solution, aiming for complete national autonomy in technology and data.

 

As Vietnam aims to be in the top three in cybersecurity, Tran Nghi Phu (Deputy Chief of Staff of the People’s Security Academy), the oVnCr project’s “Chief Architect,” shares his aspiration to build a Vietnamese – branded national platform.

The Real War Manpower Gap

The reality is that Vietnam is short of hundreds of thousands of high – quality personnel, especially those with combat skills. Traditional training models are no longer adequate.

The biggest gap is the fact that students, despite having a long time to learn the theory, have little access to practical problems. They lack the opportunity to perform on complex systems that are close to the reality. Even in corporate training or practice, most of the time it’s just a one – way introduction to basic knowledge or a demo.

As a result, participants are not allowed to directly handle the situations arising on the system they are managing, leading to a lack of training in their skills and experience in handling actual incidents.

Many major powers such as the United States, Israel, and South Korea have their own Cyber Range. Why is Vietnam not buying available solutions but is determined to build its own “Open” system?

Network tricks are essential tools for a secure digital nation, allowing simulations of IT/OT/SCADA systems for offensive and defensive maneuvers. However, the importation of foreign solutions faces huge hurdles.

The first is that initial investment and operation costs are extremely expensive, causing waste if not fully exploited. Second, foreign scenarios are often not close to Vietnam’s reality, requiring complex adjustments. Third, maintaining a high-level team of experts to operate these closed systems is a challenge.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has abundant human resources, an open cybersecurity community such as Vi-Security, and ready Cloud infrastructure. We can solve this problem entirely by taking ownership of the technology, building an “Open VNSTR” (oVnCr).

“Open” philosophy to mobilize Vietnamese minds

In order to overcome the limitation of resources and closing technology, we build oVnCr based on 4 comprehensive “Open” pillars:

Human resources open: We’re mobilizing experts, academics and businesses to participate in development and operation. This helps eliminate the reliance on foreign experts or a small local group.

Open Technology: Prioritizing the use of Open Source and integration of “Make in Vietnam” products. This helps to increase autonomy, optimize costs and create Vietnamese tech brand.

Open on cooperation mechanism: To implement the “three houses” model: State – School/Institute – Enterprise. The parties involved from the beginning to ensure that the rehearsal script is a “measuring” product that aligns with the actual needs.

Openness to Information: Transparency with scripts and evaluation results to combat “performance sickness” or “color-collating” in rehearsals. Effectiveness should be measured by your ability to deal with the underlying situation.

oVnCr is designed with superior simulation capacity. The system is capable of comprehensive simulations from traditional computer networks (IT) to specific systems such as IoT and SCADA/ICS (industrial control).

In scale, the field allowed simulations of thousands of equipment and simultaneous maneuvers for hundreds of teams. Scenarios are exactly built according to the reality, including SME enterprise systems, core service servers and also scenarios dedicated to Government agencies.

We also prioritize the integration of Vietnamese technologies such as the C500 (Security Academy) emulator infrastructure, MobiFone’s Cloud, PTIT’s hacking tool and Kaspersky Vietnam’s SOC system.

Commercialization roadmap and national vision

Currently, the People’s Security Academy (C500) supports simulator infrastructure; MobiFone sponsors Cloud; NIC invests in core hardware infrastructure; PTIT develops attack tools and SCS participates in core technology development. This is a demonstration that Vietnamese people can connect to do big things.

The project reported to the Government in November 2025, and is scheduled to run a trial version of oVnCr 1.0 in March 2016 at several universities.

The roadmap is as follows: In June 2026, officially launch version 1.0 with IT system demonstration capability and overall SOC integration. In December 2026, AI-integrated version 2.0 was launched, which began commercialization to train enterprises. In June 2027, version 3.0 was released, expanding to the IoT, SCADA and aiming towards the Hybrid Cyber Range model that serves Pentest for the real system.

We expect that oVnCr will become a national digital platform that will not only help Vietnam gain autonomy in human resource training but also affirm the technological capacity of Vietnamese people on the world map.

– QTT-

Reference: https://vietnamnet.vn/giai-ma-thao-truong-mang-make-in-vietnam-loi-giai – cho-con-khat-nhan-luc-so-2478958.html