“It took me two days to get my account back, and I was really stressed,” she explained.
Batalha is not the only one. Online scams in Brazil skyrocketed 65% last year, to more than 200,000, according to data from the Brazilian Public Safety Yearbook released last month.
Across Latin America, online fraud and cyberattacks are at an “all-time high,” cybersecurity firm Tenable said, posing an urgent problem for a well-connected region.
Latin America’s recent progress in tech inclusion has created new opportunities for scams, experts say, with the pandemic fueling a trend toward mobile banking and shopping using payment systems like Brazil’s hugely popular PIX.
The region is increasingly online. In 2022, 77.9% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean used the Internet, compared to 74.8% the previous year and above the world rate of 66.3%, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Almost half of Latin American Internet users spend an average of six hours a day on social networks, according to a report by the cybersecurity company Kaspersky.
“The growing reliance on new technologies has made it easier for cybercriminals to attack more frequently,” said Kerry-Ann Barrett, a cybersecurity specialist at the Organization of American States (OAS).
Threats are becoming more complex and expensive, costing the region billions a year, Barrett noted.
In Peru, a gang defrauded a construction company out of more than $62,000 by posing as a bank with a fake website, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
In Mexico, scammers have targeted unsuspecting victims with bogus job offers via text messages to entice victims into sharing sensitive personal data, according to local press reports.
“Latin America is a priority target because it has a highly connected population, which means they are always exposed,” said Claudio Martinelli, Kaspersky’s general manager for Latin America.
Institutions and governments are also more vulnerable than in other parts of the world. In a 93-nation ranking of cyber threat risks compiled by fraud prevention software SEON, nine of the 10 Latin American countries analyzed ranked in the bottom half.
Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela were among the 10 countries with the highest risk of cyber threats.
The region had the highest proportion of unprotected data in the world in 2022, Tenable said, making companies vulnerable to threats such as ransomware, a type of attack that locks down a computer and then demands money to release it.
Ransomware was responsible for six out of 10 attacks in 2022, including one on the Costa Rican Ministry of Finance by Russian hackers, who demanded $10 million.
Latin America’s ability to safeguard against future attacks is hampered by a lack of regulation and judicial investigations, said Marcos Simplicio, a professor specializing in cybersecurity at the University of Sao Paulo (USP).
“Virtual crime is no different from physical crime. As long as it generates benefits, and if there is little chance of punishment, it will continue,” he said.