"Cybercrimes have increased between 30% and 40% in recent years in Latin America and it is one of the areas in the world that registered the greatest activity in this regard."
This was stated by the president of the Research Foundation of the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives (IMEF), José Antonio Quesada, during the XLIII IMEF National Convention 2015, recently held in Cancún, Mexico.
The latest reports state, precisely, Mexico, in the spotlight. In the last four years, the country received 30,000 telephone reports related to cybercrimes, declared Mexican representative Lizbeth Eugenia Rosas Montero in July of this year. But it is not the only country in the region that is on alert.
The cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab detected nearly 400 million attempted virus attacks in Latin America in 2015, which translates into more than 20 incidents per second.
Regarding this type of attack (virus), Brazil tops the list of countries in the region: 27.6 million infection attempts, and is number 18 on the scale. worldwide.
Mexico ranks second in Latin America in attacks due to virus infection (15.9 million incidents). Completing the list are Colombia (5.1 million), Peru (4.3 million), Venezuela (2 million) and Chile with (1.6 million).
But what are the reasons that justify the increase in this type of crime in Latin America?
Experts point to three causes: lack of reporting, economic and industrial development and the difficulty of "tracking" criminals.
Dangerous silence
Quesada maintains that it is necessary for companies, financial and government institutions, as well as citizens themselves, to report cyber attacks, "which, until now, has not been done."
The factors that promote the cybercrime industry:
"There is a lot of opacity regarding the theft of information through the Internet, since companies do not report these crimes for fear of a reputational loss that leads to the flight of clients and affects business," the expert explained.
Quesada also assured that governments "are the main hackers" and that they "use technology to obtain tax information for tax collection or political purposes."
"Latin America is not a region where there are only attacks originating from cybercriminals but also very important actors, such as government agencies," he assures the cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab.
Economic and industrial development
"The victims have become more widespread and the crimes today occupy all possible niches: commerce, companies, corporations, governments and ordinary people."
This was stated by the director of Research and Analysis of Kaspersky Lab in Latin America, Dmitry Bestuzhev.
And according to the report issued by said company, Latin America has become "an important region from the point of view of economic development, Internet penetration and industrial development on the world stage."
"These three factors make the attacks that were registered in the region more complex, greater in numbers and even new in terms of the techniques used," said the company's experts.
Tracking difficulty
For companies, the main threat is a type of Trojan (malicious software) specialized in theft of financial data, which was present in almost 30% of the attacks.
These viruses spread through USB, email attachments and by downloading and using illegal software.
"In Colombia, for example, cybercriminals used emails to make users believe that it was a statement from the tax office known as DIAN, in which they accused users of tax evasion in order to convince them to open the attached document," Kaspersky Lab reports in its report.
In the case of Mexico, The deception technique focused on sending false emails supposedly sent by a banking institution.
"We would have to see how and who is carrying out these crimes, but many times being able to find the trace in this type of attacks is very complicated," said Quesada.
Updated on: 01/12/2015 00:00:00
Source of Information: BBC Tecnología
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