Mexico. According to Comstor, Westcon-Comstor's business unit, cybersecurity investments worldwide are around $120 trillion for 2017. In Latin America, these will reach up to USD$12 trillion according to predictions, which translates into 10% of that value by 2019, a large amount, but still insufficient to contain the countless invasions in the region's business and personal networks.
An investigation carried out by the IDB (International Development Bank) in partnership with the OAS (Organization of American States) pointed out that latin American and Caribbean countries must invest even more in cybersecurity, especially since, of the 32 countries investigated, 16 of them do not have the capacity to respond or adequate coordination in the face of invasions. Only four countries reached the intermediate level of development in this regard.
The study analyzes the maturation of cybersecurity policies based on 49 indicators distributed in five categories: policy and strategy, culture and society, education, legal framework and technology. The concern of the specialists is great since, the vulnerability of the region is delicate. Latin America is the fourth largest market in mobile telephony in the world, half of the population uses the Internet and in some countries 100% of government purchases are already made by telephone. Some surveys indicate that, during the past year, 50% of financial institutions in Latin America suffered some type of attack, in different modalities such as malware, phishing, password theft, among others.
Latino companies interviewed about cybersecurity say that this issue is one of the three threats to their businesses. 40% of them say that one day they will be the target of attacks; 52% admit to not being prepared for sophisticated attacks; and 56% agree with the fact that there are no qualified professionals on the market capable of helping to reduce the chances of invasions.
Especially in Mexico, the main targets of attacks are in the manufacturing sector, accounting for 27% of invasions, followed by banking services with 21%, and the infrastructure sector, 18%. Retail and online shopping account for 12%.
The estimated cost per victim in Mexico grew from $197 in 2012 to $311 in 2015. It is estimated that the country's banks alone lost $94 million to online fraud in 2014. These are figures that impress and grow every year especially because there are many cybercrimes that are not reported.
The IDC profiled cybercrime in Latin America, which shows that in recent years the number of digital attacks increased from 30% to 40% in the region. In Brazil there were 27 million invasions, in Mexico 18 million and in Colombia 5. Of the sample of entrepreneurs interviewed, 4 out of 5 stated that investment in the protection of their networks is a priority for the continuation of their businesses. The prediction of the study is that investments in cybersecurity will increase 8.6% in the acquisition of software and 4.5% in security hardware until 2020 increasing the digital security market.
With more devices connected on the Internet including from the Internet of Things (IoT), the chances of attacks are greater, especially on mobile devices, which in addition to having fewer security tools has less research and follow-up by specialists.
IT teams and companies around the world are on time to act against hackers by developing tools that can be auxiliary to a faster solution to crimes. The objective is to facilitate the organization, search, mapping, visualization and management of large data sets that may indicate some type of attack.
