Today, drug trafficking is a global concern. Talking about numbers, cybercrime has outpaced its profits by far.
As the number of cyber attacks grows, with increasing speed, so do the profits that this generates. Most of these incidents have a very important economic engine, which is why they become more popular and accumulate more and more profits. In Mexico, it has surpassed even those of drug trafficking, the illicit business par excellence. And it has done so with earnings of at least 3 billion dollars annually! Today, any commercial company is exposed to attacks such as Business Email Compromise (BEC), a crime that is growing and rising profits for criminals.
The scope that cybercrime has been achieved thanks attacks against different sectors such as banking, public services, energy, media, nonetheless the sector that has been the most vulnerable is the financial sector. Since cybercrime seeks the greatest possible economic gain and this sector definitely has it has been under constant attack.
Although BEC takes much of the profit, classic cyber attack mechanisms such as the use of malicious software (malware) and data hijacking (ransomware) cannot be ignored. It is important to mention that in 2018 the countries had damages of 10.3€ million due to loss of information, income and equipment damage. Of these, 2€ million, at least 500 thousand were captured by malware and ransomware. In addition to this, Interpol (international police) identified another new cyber crime that is currently developing: the theft of digital currencies (cryptojacking), in which, through an unidentified device, they seize this type of assets. Although cryptocurrencies are not illegal, criminals have started using them to charge for their services.
It would seem evident that the countries with the highest losses are mainly those with a developed economy and a high gross domestic product, but no country is exempt from having losses due to these crimes, since technology and network access are everywhere.
Cybercrime has crossed every type of international border, therefore it has allowed the expansion of cyber attacks anywhere in the world. As for the situation in Mexico, it is much more complicated than it seems. The losses that cybercrime has left in the country, due to its national, state and municipal legislation, are not fully known. However, being the country that tops the list of cyber incidents in Latin America and one of the first ones in the world, it undoubtedly has to improve and optimize its legislation, in addition to creating awareness and culture campaigns around cybersecurity to avoid being victim of these attacks.
Currently, there is a Convention on Cybercrime or the Budapest Convention, and as 61 countries like Colombia, Paraguay, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Costa Rica, among others, have already joined, so Mexico could follow their lead. The country has a great challenge in cyber security, since only 101.5 million pesos will be allocated to “Intelligence services for national security” while the losses they represent are much greater, representing 4.3 percent of the profits obtained by crime Committed Corporate Email.
There are no certain information regarding how cybercriminals have taken advantage of this situation regarding the economic and sanitary worldwide crisis that everyone is going through but something is certain, times of crisis are golden times for hackers.
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