Mexico is in the sights of cybercounts

Due to the size and importance of our economy, the bulk of the population and the closeness with the United States, Mexico has become – since several years ago – the target more wanted by cybercriminals in Latin America and makes it the most vulnerable nation From the region so that criminals throw successful attacks, specialists affirm.

This 2025, the most common threats facing small and medium enterprises, as well as the large institutions of the financial or technological sector are: the kidnapping of information –ransomware– and emails, messages or calls for which consumers are violated.

But there is a trend that attracts the attention of computer experts, which is the fact that cybercriminals are no longer specialists, anyone with access to the deep Internet –deep web– Look for a hacker And hires a virus as a common service, said Pablo Corona, president of the Mexican Internet Association (AIMX) and information technology expert by the NYCE firm.

“Mexico is one of the largest economies in Latin America, if not, except for some comparisons (Brazil), the largest. Therefore, it is more attractive to attack the one that is bigger. By number of companies and people, Mexico is number two in Latin America, only after Brazil.

There are more companies, more infrastructure, a larger economy and, therefore, that is more attractive to criminals. That is set with other issues that can be even geopolitical, such as close to the United StatesSaid the manager in an interview.

F5, a firm specialized in cybersecurity and information technology, recently published that in 2024, in Mexico, there were between 28 and 30 billion cyber attacks, which represented an increase of 25 percent compared to 2023 .

25% rise in incidents in the last decade

According to a recent report published by ESET, which takes figures from the World Bank (BM), in the last decade the cybercidents had a growth of 25 percent year after year in the last decade in the Latin American region.

In the world, the report details, the increase in cyber attacks was 21 percent, but from 2014 to 2023 They had a faster acceleration in the Latin America and Caribbean regionin which Mexico is included.

In this context, developing countries, including those in Latin America and the Caribbean, face a greater acceleration and its weak point lies in the lower investment in cybersecurity and lack of regulationsSaid Camilo Gutiérrez Amaya, head of the ESET Latin America Research Laboratory.

According to the report released by ESET, the sector with the highest growth rate in the last 10 years in terms of cybercidents was that of public administration, then that of information and communications, in third site is the Finance and Insurance, Insurance, followed by public services and the area of ​​transport and storage.

Between 2014 and 2023, the annual average of disseminated cybercrims tripled in countries with low initial levels of commitment to cybersecurity and doubled in those with high levels of commitment. However, between 2020 and 2024 the countries of entry low have made great advances in their levels of commitment to cybersecuritysaid the ESET report.

Costs for institutions

In Mexico, according to IBM and Ponmon estimates, a cyber attack on a company has an approximate cost of 25 million pesos, a figure that depends on the size of the firm.

A figure as such, according to the estimates that exist, cannot be quantified, but to a small and medium -sized company, an event of this type can cost between thousands and millions of pesos, and for a large corporate, according to its scale, it goes millions of millions of millionsadded Pablo Corona, from the AIMX.

Throughout 2024 a total of four cyber attacks occurred in the Mexican financial system, three went to banks and one to a popular financial society (sofipo), which generated losses to financial institutions of at least 140 million pesos pesos , show official information of the Bank of Mexico.

Protection measures

Corona added that this year on the stalking of companies will be cybercounts related to the kidnapping of information looking for large amounts of money, mainly in cryptoactive, and who hackean of devices through messages, mails or telephone calls, an attack better known as phishing.

Therefore, he added, it is necessary for companies and consumers to be protected through security systems or even that the country approves a series of international standards that protect consumer data.