About a quarter of Brazilian businesses reported financial losses due to digital attacks in 2022, with the majority reporting cases of data theft, according to an annual survey conducted by security firm Proofpoint.
The survey states that 78% of Brazilian companies had at least one successful experience of a data theft (phishing) attack via email in 2022, and 23% of them suffered financial losses as a result. The company has not collected information on the amount of damage caused by the attacks.
The survey, also conducted in 14 other countries, found that 58% of Brazilian companies experienced a ransomware attempt last year, with 46% of cases being successful for hackers.
In this type of attack, criminals manage to block the victim from accessing data on affected systems and charge a “ransom” payment using cryptocurrencies or untraceable transactions. Only seven out of 10 companies regained access to their data after paying the ransom, according to the report.
During the digital attacks, 91% of affected organizations paid a ransom and 29% did so more than once. Of the organizations affected by ransomware in the country, 92% had a ransomware attack insurance policy in place.
The survey was conducted using questionnaires and spoke globally to 7,500 employees and 1,050 IT professionals from partner companies. In Brazil, 500 employees and 50 IT professionals of partner companies were interviewed.
In the past year, several Brazilian companies and institutions have faced attempts at digital attacks, such as Americanas, investment bank BR Partners, Banco Pan, automotive wheel and component maker Iochpe-Maxion, sanitation company Aegea and the National Petroleum Agency (Agência Nacional do Petroleo). ANP). Americanas alone lost about 1 billion reais in sales after the hack recorded in February 2022.
As phishing continues to gain traction, many hackers have escalated attacks using phishing phones and websites designed to mimic trusted addresses, which bypass multi-factor authentication, according to the survey.
“These techniques have been around for years, but in 2022 they were being implemented on a large scale,” Rogério Morais, Proofpoint’s vice president in Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a press release.
Source: Terra
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