As digitization grows, Latin America faces new challenges, such as cybercrime. The big challenge in the region is that there is high internet usage and very little awareness of cybersecurity. We investigated that, as of early 2020, only 12 countries in the region had approved a national cybersecurity strategy, leaving many Latin American countries exposed to all kinds of cyberattacks.
Building trust is a challenge in the digital world; and it becomes even more complex as open finance and new technologies, such as metaverse or artificial intelligence (AI), are included in the financial ecosystem. Injecting security into digital interactions is key and identity is increasingly critical to this.
Unfortunately, the risk of falling victim to a virtual scam is increasing year on year. One of the factors that explain this is the accelerated bankarization that Latin American society has experienced in recent years, as well as a greater number of ecommerces on the web. Here are some shocking facts about virtual scams in Latam.
More cyber-attacks in Latam
The multinational company Kaspersky stated that cybercrime in Latin America increased by 24% in the first 8 months of 2022, this data reflects the lack of IT security in the region.
Translated into figures, it is approximately 35 cyber-attacks per second, where the most affected countries are Ecuador, with 75% more cyber-attacks, followed by Panama (60%), Guatemala (43%) and Venezuela (29%).
Chile and Argentina: Most fraud complaints.
An effective way to know the amount of cybercrime is to look at the number of complaints in each country, where Argentina increased by 200% the number of cyber fraud complaints in 2022. This statistic is accompanied by the exponential growth of ecommerce that this country experienced during the pandemic: increasing by 79%, ranking #1 globally.
On the other hand, Chile’s cybercrime brigade reported an 89% growth in cybercrime complaints in 2021.
29% increase in pishing attacks
Pishing is the impersonation of a company’s identity in order to request banking information with the aim of unblocking the account or accessing a service. It was a crime that increased by 29% worldwide.
Cybercrime mainly affected Colombia.
Globally, Colombia was the country most affected by cyber-attacks, with 93.9% of all its companies having been compromised at least once. In Latam, it is followed by Mexico (90.6%), ranked #4 worldwide, and Brazil (85%), ranked 11th worldwide.
Among the most important cybercrimes for a company we find mail pishing, ransomware, information theft, chargeback frauds, etc.
Costa Rica: 26% of cybernauts suffered scam attempts.
26% of Costa Rican households suffered a scam attempt, where 4.9% indicated that a member of their family ended up being a victim of a scam. In 42% of the cases, personal data of the victim was requested and in 16.4% of the cases a payment was demanded.
Ransomware grows by 400%.
Ransomware is a type of malware that hijacks the information of a user or an online store, demanding money in order to release it. This cybercrime increased by 400% in Mexico during 2021, from 5 thousand cases per week in February 2020 to more than 200 thousand in the first half of 2021. There are 37,700 ransomware attacks worldwide per hour.
Only 37% of Latin American companies have incorporated security protocols.
Only 37% of Latin American CEOs implemented formal data security processes within their companies, such as encryption or secure sharing. The good news is that the regional statistic is three percentage points above the universal average of 34%.
Conclusion
If you have a company, regardless of whether it is small, medium or large, it is important to carry out ongoing checks to ensure that security is optimal. This way, you will avoid being a victim of virtual scams and losing the trust of your customers. At Pulse we take care of providing you with the necessary tools to establish your business in Latin America, we have IDV services that will help prevent digital fraud and ensure your success in expanding your operations.
