Mexico. Comstor business unit of Westcon-Comstor and one of the main wholesalers of Cisco technology, makes an overview of cybercrimes in Mexico.
5,000 claims is the amount that the Cybercrime Unit of the Ministry of Public Security of Mexico City receives every year because of cyberattacks. Among the cases leading this index are child abuse, fraud, data theft and identity theft. Data from PwC's 2015 Global Information Security Report showed a growth of more than 30% in financial biases caused by security breaches, even with sky-high investments in technology for that purpose.
The Cybercrime Unit has been around since 2013 and sees the growing number of claims. Much is explained by the number of Internet accesses in Mexico, which also increased. According to the Mexican Internet Association (AMIPCI), in the last year alone there was an increase of more than 11 million users, which means that there are more than 65 million people in the country who have some type of Internet access, representing almost 60% of the population.
Virtual crimes occur when hackers take advantage of vulnerability and lack of protection in accessed systems. Cybercriminals are looking for any failure to capture data that may become important to the competition, that can be hijacked and returned just with the payment of ransoms or even with individuals who have bank details and passwords stolen.
In Mexico, the first recommendation of the authorities in the case of the virtual attack is that the victim immediately contact the specialized cybercrime unit, as the information can disappear quickly. Specialists begin tracking information about the attack to locate its origin. When authorities find information about fraudulent websites, phishing or inappropriate content, specialists look for the trail left by the perpetrator of the crime through his digital signature.
Invest in resources to prevent virtual attacks companies and people concerned with their data must invest in several resources to strengthen their protection, ranging from the use of software and other technologies, to the awareness of the end user about the correct use of data and access to the system.
In the euphoria of the implementation of the new technology, you can easily neglect basic security actions that can place information at risk, such as, for example, updating software, creating strong passwords, using antivirus and other more accessible technologies for the control and monitoring of attacks.
Cyberattacks are increasingly advanced and invaders intersperse the use of already known techniques with new ones, which together, are able to penetrate the defense structures of networks. Those techniques include malware, phishing, denial of service (DDoS), operational system vulnerability attacks, and Web application vulnerability.
Looking for reliable providers, configuring access control by limiting users who can access certain information or even seeing which machines are allowed to download files, applications and data, are basic and fundamental steps that must be combined with higher technology tools for protection to be efficient.
In addition to that, security professionals need to arm their defenses with solutions that can detect those threats, try to anticipate solutions for the weakest points and targets of attacks, in addition to managing risks so that data breaches are avoided and, above all, plan the response strategy, because time is decisive for the impacts of a security incident to be minimized.
