Mexico faces over half of Latin American cybercrimes due largely to US ties

By Aida Pelaez-Fernandez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico accounted for just over half of all cyber threats reported in Latin America in the first half of 2024, cybersecurity firm Fortinet said in a study.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

As Mexico undergoes a nearshoring boom, in which companies shift production closer to their primary markets, cybercriminals have been targeting sectors such as logistics and automotive and electronics manufacturing to maximize the impact and benefits of their attacks.

Hackers are increasingly targeting specific market segments to obtain larger ransoms, and are also using artificial intelligence to boost efficiency, executives said at the study's presentation.

BY THE NUMBERS

Mexico suffered 31 billion cybercrime attempts during the first half of 2024, or 55% of those in Latin America, the report showed.

Sunnyvale, California-based Fortinet estimated a global shortage of 4 million AI professionals, including 1.3 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and around 500,000 in Mexico.

KEY QUOTES

Mexico is facing more attacks than Brazil due to its proximity and commercial ties with the United States, Fortinet's Mexico chief Jorge Miranda said in the presentation.

Processing companies associated with nearshoring are being directly targeted by ransomware attacks for much larger ransoms, he noted.

While first-half figures in Mexico may seem like a slowdown from its 94 billion attacks in all of 2023, Miranda stressed that the cybercrime rate remains very high.

WHAT'S NEXT

Fortinet said it hopes Mexico will enact a cybersecurity law to shore up against attacks within the next year or two. President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged last week to create a cybersecurity and artificial intelligence center during her term, but did not mention a law.

(Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Richard Chang)