Latin Americans fall prey to more online scams as cybersecurity lags

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cryptocurrency investments. To recover her account, the 27-year-old lawyer from Rio de Janeiro had to pay 200 reais ($40) to a «consultant» she found on YouTube, a man she says could have been a scammer himself. «It took me two days to recover my account, and I was under a lot of stress,» she said.

Batalha is not alone. Online scams in Brazil jumped 65% last year to over 200,000, according to data from the Brazilian Public Security Yearbook published last month. And across Latin America, online frauds and cyberattacks are at an «all-time high,» says cybersecurity company Tenable, posing an urgent problem for a well-connected region.

Latin America's recent progress on technological 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 in Latin America and the Caribbean used the internet, up from 74.8% the year before and above the global rate of 66.3%, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

And nearly half of Latin American internet users spend an average of six hours a day on social media, according to a report by cybersecurity company Kaspersky. «The increasing reliance on new technology has made it easier for cybercriminals to attack more frequently,» said Kerry-Ann Barrett, a cybersecurity specialist at the Organization of American States (OAS). The threats are increasingly complex and costly, costing the region billions annually, Barrett said.