One of the biggest lessons learned during this covid19 pandemic is technology can be everyone’s ally or be someone’s enemy.
The pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology, digitalisation, as well as the automation of processes and tasks within business, industrial and service sectors. However, there were alerts for cybercrimes, which, according to data, increased 600 per cent during this health emergency.
In an interview with Infobae, a worldwide Spanish-language online newspaper, technology company IBM noted that the average cost of a data breach of a company in 2022 was US$2.09 million. This represents an increase of 15 per cent in comparison to what was registered in 2021. However, this is not the only variation recorded. In the Latin America Outlook report prepared by IBM, it noted that 60 per cent of the companies increased the price of their services following a data breach.
Other data reveal that the Latin American and Caribbean region suffered 137 billion attempted cyberattacks between January and June 2022. This is an increase compared to the same period in 2021. In addition to the extremely high numbers, the data reveal an increase in the use of more sophisticated and targeted strategies, such as ransomware. During the first six months of 2022, approximately 384,000 ransomware distribution attempts were detected worldwide. Of these, 52,000 were destined for Latin America.
It is estimated that in 2021 there were 289 billion cyber threats that affected Latin America, which means that each of the 667 million inhabitants has been subjected to or an average of 433 attacks in the year (more than one per day).
In the first half of 2022, the Caribbean experienced 144 million cyberattack attempts, with ransomware being the most common breach. TT was among the Caribbean countries that experienced such attacks. Last year, the TT Cybersecurity Incident Response Team (TT-CSIRT) of the Ministry of National Security reported a significant increase in attacks, especially ransomware. One of the most high-profile cases was the attack that forced Massy Group, one of TT's largest suppliers of consumer goods and pharmaceuticals to close its stores. Hackers froze the supermarket chain's system and extracted approximately 216 gigabytes of data.
"These cyberattackers take advantage of system vulnerabilities and in many cases not only affect data centers or databases, but also any system or equipment connected to an internet connection network or cloud," said Jaime Reinoso, South English Caribbean territory manager at Schneider Electric.
Cybercrime is constantly evolving. Attackers are attentive to the latest trends and technologies to hook the largest number of victims with attacks that often involve various actions and seek to make at least one successful. In addition, they have gone from being basic and massive to more complex and selective, which shows that cybercriminals are fine-tuning their tactics and procedures to be more efficient with their goal. "In the last two years, companies across all industr
