Mexico faces more than half of Latin America’s cybercrime due largely to US ties, by Reuters

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, cyber security firm Fortinet (NASDAQ: ) said in a study.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

As Mexico undergoes a nearshoring boom, where companies move production closer to their main markets, cybercriminals have targeted 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 extract larger ransoms and are also using artificial intelligence to increase efficiency, executives said at the study presentation.

BY NUMBERS

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

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

KEY QUOTE

Mexico faces more attacks than Brazil because of its proximity and trade ties to the United States, Fortinet’s head of Mexico, Jorge Miranda, said in the presentation.

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

While Mexico’s first-half numbers may seem like a slowdown from the 94 billion attacks in 2023, Miranda pointed out that the cybercrime rate remains very high.

WHAT’S NEXT

Fortinet said it hopes Mexico will pass a cybersecurity law to support the attacks in the next year or two. Speaker Claudia Sheinbaum pledged last week to create a cybersecurity and artificial intelligence center during her tenure, but did not name a law.