Leaks and hacks worry Mexican companies towards 2023: PwC

Even though he ransomwareor information hijacking, has become one of the most prevalent threats among cyber attacksMexican companies see information leaks and hacks that interrupt their operations as the biggest cybersecurity concerns in 2023.

According to the Mexican edition of the Digital Trust Insights 2023 of PwC46% of the executives consulted by the consultancy said that operational hacking and information leaks are the cyber attacks that they expect to experience a significant increase during 2023.

This figure is far from the 30% of companies globally that believes that this type of attack will grow the most in 2023.

The ransomwarea type of attack through which cyber attackers encrypt the information of their victims and ask for a ransom to return it or not to make it public, is the second threat that most worries companies in Mexico by 2023, with 35 percent.

According to Juan Carlos Carrillo, director of Cybersecurity and Data Protection at PwC Mexico, the fear of executives of Mexican companies is due to the fact that they have begun to worry that a cyberattack will stop their operation, something that did not happen until the companies they began to integrate production and administrative processes digitally.

“Businesses in Mexico are beginning to realize that cyber attacks not only affect the company’s technology but can even stop the operation. That is a cultural advance,” Carrillo said in an interview.

Hacking of email accounts (35%), exploitation of cloud service components (28%) and third-party breaches (29%) are also among the concerns of Mexican executives. In all cases, fear among companies is greater in Mexico than globally.

Cybercriminals are the main actors threatening Mexican companies, according to 67% of those surveyed by PwC. They are followed by internal actors, that is, those who operate from within the company, with 52%, and in third place are hackers or hacktivists, with 50 percent.

budget grows

Faced with these threats that envision towards 2023, 72% of the mexican companies they will increase their cybersecurity budget for next year. 10% of the companies will keep it unchanged and 24% will decrease it.

However, according to Carrillo, investment plans in security technologies among Mexican companies are disconnected from global trends. While at a global level, companies plan to direct their budget to base technologies such as network security and managed security services, Mexican companies are betting on advanced technologies, such as real-time threat intelligence.

“I was very surprised because this issue of real-time threat intelligence requires that you already have the elements to do that intelligence on threats, such as network security,” said Carrillo.

rodrigo.riquelme@eleconomista.mx

kg