IDB and OAS ask the LA and the Caribbean for more efforts in the area of cybersecurity

 

The leaders of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Organization of American States (OAS) appealed to the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to accelerate their work on cybersecurity, after the presentation of a new study prepared by both institutions, with support from the University of Oxford, which demonstrates that the region is highly vulnerable to potentially devastating cyberattacks. The report also had the collaboration of the Center for Strategic International Studies, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, the FIRST Organization, the Council of Europe, the Potomac Institute and the World Economic Forum.
 
The 2016 Cybersecurity Report – Are We Ready in Latin America and the Caribbean? reveals that four out of five countries in the region do not have cybersecurity strategies or plans to protect critical infrastructure. Two out of three do not have a cybersecurity command and control center. The vast majority of prosecutors do not have the capacity to prosecute cyber crimes, among other shortcomings.
 
The report analyzes the state of preparedness of 32 countries based on 49 indicators. This is the first in-depth x-ray of Latin America and the Caribbean's level of preparedness in the face of the growing threat of cybercrime.
 
Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago are at an intermediate level of development, but still far from advanced countries such as the United States, Israel, Estonia and the Republic of Korea.
 
“This report is a call to action for us to protect our citizens and our essential 21st century infrastructure,” said IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno. “Our region is late to the Industrial Revolution. We cannot miss the opportunity opened up by the digital revolution . For that reason, cybersecurity needs to be a priority."
 
OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro emphasized that cyberspace is increasingly an integral part of the daily lives of people in the Americas and is essential for their development. “For this reason, we have to perceive cybersecurity like any other form of security: a topic of very high priority for our people, without which we are exposed to potentially catastrophic losses. In this context, our motto “More rights for more people” translates into a commitment to continue working to strengthen our countries' capacities to protect the people, economies and critical infrastructure of our region."
 
The risk of abuse increases as Latin America and the Caribbean enter the digital revolution. The region is the fourth largest mobile market in the world. Half of the population uses the Internet. There are countries in Latin America that process 100% of their government purchases electronically. The risks will be multiplied with the advent of the “Internet of Things”, in which not only computers will be interconnected, but also a universe of intelligent machines and sensors, controlling virtually everything we use in our daily lives.
 
This assessment of the maturity of cybersecurity policies includes 49 indicators distributed in five areas: policy and strategy, culture and society, education, legal framework and technology. The report includes technical data from all countries and analyzes key elements such as the status of legislation and the ability of countries to respond to incidents.
 
In 16 countries, cyber incident response capacity is not coordinated. Only four countries in the region are above the intermediate level of development in this regard.
 
Only six countries in the region have a structured cybersecurity education program with a stable budget and investigation and knowledge transfer mechanisms.