Lao PDR is located as a country in the center of Southeast Asia. It has the same borders with five surrounding countries; for instance, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Thailand. Laos is one of the poorest countries in Asia with 27 percent of citizens who are living less than one dollar per day [263]. Laos’s government recognized that ICT can improve the development of the country; however, Lao People Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) had experienced similar kinds of cyberattacks like the other countries in the same region and other parts in the world. Therefore, in 2009, the national ICT policy was established. Before 2012, Lao PDR was the only one in ASEAN countries which didn’t have a National Computer Incident Response Team (Nation CIRT). Nevertheless, regarding the increasing the number of cyberattacks and the quick boosting of ICT, in February 2012, Lao Computer Emergency Response Team (LaoCERT) was established and recognized as one division under the Lao National Internet Center (LANIC) [264], [265]. Moreover, based on the recommendation of the International telecommunication Union – the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (ITU-IMPACT) [266], in June of 2016, LaoCERT was divided from Lao National Intern Center to become a National CERT of Lao PDR and under the monitoring of Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.
At present, LaoCERT is a member of Asia Pacific CERT (APCERT) with 4 divisions such as administration and cooperation, research and development, technical, and information monitoring [267]. Furthermore, LaoCERT also enhances the collaboration with some regional organizations; for example, took part in ASEAN - Japan activities
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in 2012, signed the MoU with ThaiCERT in 2013, IDSIRT in 2015, VNCERT and CNCERT/CC in 2017, Cambodia Computer Emergency Response Team (CamCERT), Japan Computer Emergency Response Team (JPCERT), and FIRST to improve ICT environment secure and safe [267]. Last but not least, Laos is the first country in ASEAN group signed MOU on 19, June 2018 about the usage of Blockchain technology with Lina Network Corporation in order to do research and develop
“Digital Identity” for Laos’s government. With this technology, Laos’s government enhances in managing the citizen’s data flow absolutely, ensuring privacy as well as identity management and authentication information with simple applications [268].
Legislation and laws
Lao government created the policy to enhance the security of ICT sector as a critical tool for social and economic development with laws, regulations, decrees, and related legislations, following by [269], [270],[271], [272]:
National ICT policy (2009)
Telecommunication law (21/12/2011)
E-transaction law (7/12/2012)
Criminal law (11/12/2012)
Draft of National Broadband plan (2012-2020)
Draft e-government master plan (2013-2020)
Decree on online information management (2014)
Cybercrime law (15/7/2015)
Draft of National ICT policy (2015-2025)
ICT law (2016)
Drafting Data protection law (2017)
Ministry Post Telecommunication (MPT) vision 2030, strategy 2025 and development plan 2020
ICT policies
Lao PDR clarified nine major areas in ICT policies with a long term consideration such as Infrastructure and Access; Enterprise and Industry; Research and Development;
Applications; Human Resource Development; Legal Framework; Awareness; Poverty Alleviation; and Standardization and Localization [258],[273], [Table 3.8].
Table 3.8. Lao’s ICT policies
ICT policies areas Functions
Infrastructure and Access
-Focusing on expanding the existing telecommunications infrastructure -Linking rural and remote areas
-Providing telecommunication services to underserved areas
-Reducing import tax for ICT equipment
Enterprise and Industry
-Encouraging enterprise development in the ICT sector
-Supporting national and foreign investors to compete and cooperate in investment in ICT fields
-Promoting local ICT enterprise development by reducing tax, import ICT equipment
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ICT policies areas Functions
Research and Development
- Developing national research and development centers in ICT
- Supporting cooperation with private sector ICT companies
- Encouraging the development of National ICT association (NICTA) Applications
-Enhancing in providing some services and management like government, e-tourism, and banking
Human Resource Development
- Promoting and supporting ICT learning to ensure the necessary capacities to meet national goals
- Creating the telecentre programs to enable ICT learning in rural and remote areas
- Building up the exchange technical knowledge and expertise
Legal Framework
-Developing a comprehensive of cyber-laws to manage information networks -Encompassing e-commerce/ e-business, cybercrimes, consumer protection, and intellectual property rights
Awareness
- Implementing a public awareness program to ensure citizen’s awareness of ICT importance
- Encourage the private sector and the international community to support the public awareness program
Poverty Alleviation
-Safeguarding the growth with equity (gender, ethnicity, location and returnee status)
-Facilitating the application of ICT on social networks (civil society, academia, the general public, government and private sector)
-Focusing on environment, health, gender and youth
Standardization and localization
- Developing software, hardware, protocol standards, equipment services to ensure interoperability and harmonization with international, regional, and sub-regional standards - Establishing network on ICT ( national and international experts, academia, government, and the private sector)
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ICT policies areas Functions
- Adopting Unicode standard for Lao script, and improving digital interchange in the Lao language
Although there are some limited in development of IT skills; human resources;
infrastructure development; capacity building; and finance, Laos’ ICT has full supported by the government in order to fight against cybercrime.