Leaders of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the
Organization of American States (OAS) have called on Latin America and
the Caribbean countries to step up efforts on cyber security.
They made the call after releasing a new study on Monday which shows the
region is highly vulnerable to potentially devastating cyber-attacks.
The2016 Cyber security report titled “Are we ready in Latin America and
the Caribbean?” was undertaken by the two institutions in collaboration
with Oxford University.
It showed that four out of every five countries in the region do not
have a cyber security strategy or plans for protecting critical
infrastructure.
The report also shows that two out of three countries do not have a command and control centre for cyber security.
Additionally, the report says that a large majority of prosecutors lack
the capacity to punish cybercrimes and face other problems as well.
According to the OAS, the report analyses the state of preparedness of 32 countries based on 49 indicators.
It is the first significant examination of the level of preparedness in
Latin America and the Caribbean against the growing threat of
cybercrime, the OAS said.
It said while Uruguay, Brazil, México, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and
Trinidad and Tobago have achieved an “intermediate level of
preparedness,” they “remain far from advanced countries,” like the
United States, Israel, Estonia and the Republic of Korea.
“This report is a call to action to protect our citizen and our critical
infrastructure for the 21st Century,” said IDB President Luis Alberto
Moreno.
“Our region arrived late to the Industrial Revolution. We cannot miss
the opportunity that the Digital Revolution offers us. Because of that,
cyber security must be apriority.”
OAS Assistant Secretary General, Nestor Mendez, emphasized that cyber
space is increasingly becoming an integral part of the daily life of
people in the Americas, including the Caribbean, and is indispensable to
their total development.
“That is why we have to regard cyber security like any other kind of
security: an issue of the highest priority for our people, without which
we expose ourselves to potentially catastrophic losses,” he said.
“In this context, our motto, of ‘more rights for more people’ signals
our commitment to continue working to strengthen the capacity of our
countries to protect our people, our economies and the critical
infrastructure of our region,” he added.
The OAS said the risks of abuse increase as Latin America and the Caribbean join the digital revolution.
It said the region is the fourth largest mobile market in the world, with half its population using the Internet.
The evaluation of the maturity of cyber security policies in the region
includes 49indicators in five areas: policy and strategy, culture and
society education, legal framework and technology.
The report includes technical data on each of the countries and analyses
key elements such as the legal status and the capacity of each country
to respond to incidents.
The report notes 16 countries in the region have no coordinated capacity
to respond to incidents. Only four rank above the intermediate level of
maturity in this respect.
Only six have a structured program of education in cyber security, which
includes budgetary stability as well as mechanisms for research and the
transfer of knowledge, the report states.