Central America remains a perfect target for attacks.

Data from recent Kaspersky Threat Landscape reveal that the rate of malicious attacks on computers in the region remained stable (down 3%) in a 12-month comparison (June 2022 to July 2023 and June 2021 to July 2022). A total of 1.19 billion blocks were recorded, which represents an average of 37.9 attack attempts per
the second in Latin America. Brazil is the main target of these attacks, averaging 1,515 blocks per minute, followed by Mexico (275 per minute), Colombia (117) and Peru (107).

IN Central America and the Dominican Republic, Guatemala registers 11.4 blocks per minute, followed by Panama (11.1 per minute), Costa Rica (9.1 per minute), the Dominican Republic (7.6 per minute) and El Salvador (3.8 per minute).

Between main threats detected On computers, piracy is again highlighted, whose products may contain some kind of malware, in addition to not having adequate fixes or security patches to address vulnerabilities that cybercriminals could exploit. In Latin America, 66% of software used is pirated, almost double the world average of 35%, making piracy a big villain in the region.

On the other hand, there is adware, malicious programs that display excessive and unwanted advertising to the victim. To a lesser extent, the study also shows malicious scripts, fake addresses, Malicious and Trojan files/PDFs. This data shows that the techniques used by cybercriminals are always the same: a fake message to lead victims to a fake website, emails with a malicious file attached to infect devices, and infections while browsing (in the case of scripts).

In addition to Internet users, Cybercrime also targets organizations. In this segment, the study shows the most attacked sectors, where government entities (15.49% of infection attempts) are the ones that attract the most attention from criminals. The sectors of agriculture (11.82%), retail/wholesale trade (11.55%), industry (8.57%), education (6.92%), health (5.28%), IT/telecommunications ( 4.55%) and finance and insurance (4.55%).

“The online scams we analyze in this part of the study show that victims often look for free alternatives to avoid paying for a service, which can lead to the installation malware on your devices.

Unfortunately, in Latin America, free culture often leads to piracy, putting users at risk. Avoiding this problem requires adopting safe practices and using official software and programs,” says Fabio Assolini, director Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team for Latin America