The financial sector is one of the most attractive for hackers and proof of this is that according to figures from the Bank of Mexico (Banxico), from 2019 to January of this year there were losses of 785.4 million pesos, derived from 16 cyber attacks to banks in the country.
According to the report Main cyber incidents that occurred in the national financial system , 2020 was the year in which there were fewer violations, even though it was the period in which an increase in the use of internet banking was noted due to the pandemic. of COVID-19.
The report points out that five attacks were detected on different banking institutions of which the name was not disclosed; however, it is important to note that so far the economic effects they generated are not known.
Two of the most relevant cases occurred in November, when two ransomware attacks damaged brokerages. In one of the situations, the institution was unable to carry out funds dispersal, while in the other they were unable to provide internet banking services, banking operations or funds dispersal.
For 2019 it was the year with the most damage to the sector, since the eight violations that were carried out in this period generated losses of 784.7 million pesos. In March, for example, a security breach was detected in the ATM infrastructure that resulted in a loss of 260 million pesos.
Likewise, Banxico also announced that in May of that year the largest cyber fraud occurred, which was executed by third-party personnel who worked in an investment bank, who, through apocryphal deposit operations to checking accounts, managed to obtain 462 million pesos in three days.
During September, hackers also managed to breach the controls of two mobile banking applications using stolen keys. This operation resulted in damages of 31 million pesos and so far, no attack has been recognized by a bank.
In January 2021, Banxico detected three attacks that left losses of 700,000 pesos. Two of them were executed against ATMs of a couple of credit institutions, while the third impacted on the online service of a bank from a ransomware identified as REvil.
It should be mentioned that Banco de México has also registered that a series of ransomware that they have already identified was used in these vulnerabilities. Some of them are MedusaLocker, Sodinokibi, Crysis / Phobos and Emotet.
One of the relevant points of the information published by Banxico is that the main attacks suffered by the country’s banks have to do with ransomware, which not only impacts in terms of what the company must pay for the rescue of the information – something which is not recommended – but also represents the cost of other measures to recover your operations.
According to a study prepared by the cybersecurity firm Sophos, in Mexico, the recovery costs for companies that suffer this type of attack is 2.03 million dollars, while the global average is 1.85 million dollars.
