Along with technological advances in all industries, the increase in attacks that violate cybersecurity has become a headache for companies in the region. For this reason, efforts and investments to overcome cybercrime are increasing, in 2024 where the risks threaten to worsen.
On New Year's Eve, Colombian Brian Quintero discovered that cybercriminals accessed his bank account and emptied all the money he had: approximately US$760. Through emails, neobank Nequi notified him that there was a successful attempt to access the application using the facial recognition option. Quintero contacted a Nequi advisor, who indicated that it was very likely that cybercriminals had used artificial intelligence (AI) to generate movement in the photographs and thus circumvent the application's facial recognition system.
“The advisor who answers my call is the one who tells me that unfortunately it is a method that cybercriminals are using at this moment. They practically use applications to generate movement in your face,” the affected client commented to the Colombian media CityTV . Such an event, however, is just one of thousands of examples seen over the past few months. And they once again bring to the fore the fragility of the computer systems of companies in various sectors throughout the region.
In Latin America, the most attacked institutions are banks, followed by health and educational institutions. If we talk about specific countries, according to Bruno Santiago, Oracle's cybersecurity manager for Latin America , Brazil is the nation with the most cyberattacks, followed by Mexico and Colombia in the region. “Although this does not reduce the frequency or severity of cyberattacks in other Latin American countries,” Santiago says.
The list of violations at service providers recorded in recent months is long. “The ransomware attack on GTD in Chile, for example, affected hundreds of customers using its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) services, including government entities. In Colombia, an attack on the telecommunications operator IFX Networks interrupted the operations of the Judiciary, the Ministry of Health and other government agencies, as well as 700 companies, also from other countries,” details the Oracle executive.
ENOUGH INVESTMENT?
2023 was, without a doubt, the year of ransomware . And many companies in the region were affected by what is now called ransomware-as-a-service . “This became a reality and a palpable danger,” Robert Calva, Business Leader and automation specialist at Red Hat Latin America, tells AméricaEconomía .
The world is becoming more and more connected and, with it, the number of attack surfaces is also multiplying exponentially. The attacks have slowly built a million-dollar industry that seeks financial gain through service interruption and data theft. And, to avoid this, companies have responded with increasing investment in cybersecurity. “In 2023, the cost of cybercrime reached US$10.5 trillion and is increasing,” indicates Walter Montenegro, general manager of Cisco Chile.
According to estimates by the cybersecurity company Cybersecurity Ventures, the global cost of cyberattacks in 2023 was US$6 trillion and this figure is expected to increase to US$10 trillion in 2025. In Latin America, data leaks and breaches reached a average cost of US$ 2.46 million. This is an all-time high for the region and an increase of 76% since 2020, according to the Cost of a Data Breach study.
The expense to protect yourself from cybercrime is, then, worth its weight in gold. Above all, considering that a cyberattack is capable of affecting the entire structure of an organization. “The risk is very high. From loss of competitive advantage, credit rating reduction and increase in cyber insurance premiums to price impact on your market value and loss of sensitive customer information. On the people side, the impact ranges from extortion to leakage of personal information, identity theft and fraud,” says Andrés Cariño, director of cloud architecture at Oracle.
In Latin America, IDC estimates that companies' spending on cybersecurity is broken down into 56% for cybersecurity management services, 17% in consulting services, 14% in service integration and 12% in support services. Within that range, business leaders are identifying security as the primary use case for generative AI in their companies. “That is why 84% of companies will prioritize security solutions with generative AI over traditional ones globally, according to IBM's study on Enterprise Generative AI,” adds Pamela Skokanovic, CyberSecurity Sales. Manager of IBM South America South.
Access the PDF of the Cybersecurity Special from the February edition of AméricaEconomía here.
But the essential thing about any investment or decision will be its effectiveness in risk management. “Cybersecurity becomes a transversal element that permeates all areas of the company, showing that its importance goes beyond a monetary figure. And it lies in how it is adopted and lived within the organizational structure. For this, large figures are not needed,” says Alan Mai, CEO of Bloka , an Argentine cybersecurity consulting firm.
What cybersecurity will require is a fundamental shielding of digital systems, through the implementation of robust security measures. “Such as firewalls, data encryption, two-factor authentication, among others,” highlights Mauricio Ramírez, Palo Alto Networks executive in Latin America.
It will also be necessary to reduce vulnerability gaps with the constant updating of infrastructure, software and systems. Something that must be complemented with the training and awareness of personnel in matters of cybersecurity. “We have observed emblematic cases where the solution was always available to the institutions, but was not implemented due to different factors, such as the lack of budget allocated to cybersecurity, outdated systems and the lack of investment in new defense technologies,” says Ramírez. .
Even so, the sources consulted for this report agree that no plan or solution is 100% secure and that it is not a question of whether attacks will occur or not. The important thing is when they will occur and be prepared for that moment. “Cybersecurity clients and providers must know exactly what to do when this happens, whether to contain the attack or be able to recover the information,” adds Mauricio Gálvez, CISO of Tivit .
To achieve this, the training of cybersecurity professionals and adequate legislation will be key. Regarding regulation, countries on the American continent that have been approving frameworks to regulate data protection, such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, are the ones that are advancing the fastest.
In the particular case of Chile, a country where the so-called Cybersecurity Framework Law was approved in 2023, all companies will be required to have a cybersecurity plan, whether their own or external. This will then be audited. And the same will apply to firms that provide cybersecurity services.
GROWING THREAT
Looking ahead to 2024, many of the risks exacerbated in 2023 would continue to increase. Oracle, for example, anticipates an escalation of ransomware attacks , AI-based predictive social engineering, and Zero Trust architectures.
This will make multi-factor authentication and security around mobile devices two aspects of particular importance. And it would also anticipate growth in demand for IT professionals with deep cybersecurity knowledge. “This year, generative AI will begin to take on certain tedious and administrative tasks on behalf of security teams. But beyond this, it will allow less experienced team members to take on more challenging, higher-level tasks,” says IBM's Pamela Skokanovic.
On the other hand, internal threats also aim to grow among Latin American companies. “Many times the omission of security standards [on the part of employees] can translate into a security breach, which will be exploited by third parties. And it is also possible that some of the employees are directly responsible for the data leaks, whether involuntarily or not,” indicates Fernando Luna Guzman, Co-Founder & CEO of Lyra for Chile, Argentina and Peru.
To all this we must add worms, Trojans and spyware . IoT attacks, Man in the Middle, Zero Day Exploit , Whale Phishing , Spearphishing and BEC. “These are the most common attacks in Latin America,” emphasizes Pamela Skokanovic, from IBM South America South. “Other important issues are vulnerabilities in the supply chain, including the software used by the company or incorporated into its products, and attacks backed by governments or states, which can affect everything from critical infrastructure services to electrical networks, fuel supplies and water for a country or region,” details Santiago, from Oracle.
Thus, this year cybercrime threatens to continue positioning itself as one of the most profitable and rising criminal businesses in the region. “They are no longer people, but rather they are entities sometimes hired by governments or by competitors to collect specific data or steal classified information (...) sensitive data that you can sell and that give immense power,” confirms Mauricio Gálvez, from Tivit.
Cyber attacks will have new players and new technologies, with AI as a major protagonist. The shield or lifeline that companies use to protect themselves from these cyber threats will be decisive so that their operations and performance are affected as little as possible.
