(ISC)², the world's leading institute focused on education and professional certifications in Information Security and Cybersecurity, announces that the biggest concern of information security professionals in Latin America is the attack of ransomware, a type of harmful program that makes the infected system's data inaccessible and that charges a ransom to restore access. The result was obtained from the survey (ISC)² Global Information Security Workforce Study – GISWS (Global Information Security Workforce Study), carried out with 959 Latin American professionals.
In the Latin America region, 44% of professionals named ransomware as a top concern regarding information security. In Europe, this theme was indicated by 28% of those surveyed. In the Middle East and Africa, the threat pointed out by 47% of respondents is hacking. In North America and the Asia Pacific region, most professionals (35% and 37%, respectively) indicated data theft as a point of greatest attention.
According to the (ISC)² GISWS study, some of the issues that draw the most attention are malware, ransomware, cyberterrorism tactics, organized crime, social engineering, IoT (Internet of Things) proliferation, and points of vulnerability such as buffer overflows, or that is, anomalies where a program when writing data to a buffer crosses the limits and overwrites adjacent memory. Data exposure is the main global concern, regardless of where the professional is.
"Digital threats have evolved rapidly in recent years and there is not the necessary number of qualified professionals to deal with this scenario. Cybercriminals, on the other hand, have more and more tools to carry out their attacks and do not need to be so technical to achieve the objective. ", explains Gina van Dijk, (ISC)² Director for Latin America.
The executive highlights that there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure the digital security of companies of all sizes and government agencies. "It's critical that these organizations have well-prepared and certified teams to avoid problems and react quickly when attacks happen," says Gina. However, the percentage of respondents who complained about having smaller teams than necessary to tackle cybersecurity problems grew from 62% in 2015 to 66% in 2017. This shows that the shortage of professionals in this area is increasing, although more and more sectors recognize the importance of having a skilled cybersecurity workforce.
The Global Information Security Workforce Study is one of the main studies in the field of Information Security. In its eighth edition, the survey included more than 19,000 professionals worldwide. For more information and complete GISWS results, visit iamcybersafe.org/gisws/.
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