December broke record of cybercrime in Costa Rica

The OIJ reports an increase in complaints about computer crimes where the elderly population is the second most affected population, how is FinTech seen as an option to fight cybercrime?

According to information from the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) as of December 13, 2020, 100 more complaints have been filed than in the same month of 2019.

This occurs in a context where the use of technology increased as a result of the pandemic, a situation that has been exploited by cybercrime where as of December 13, 2020, 2,084 complaints have been filed.

FinTechs can become a powerful ally in cybersecurity through a correct educational campaign since the use of their applications stands out for their simple, intuitive interfaces that make use of multi-factor security.

Financial entities must keep up-to-date and at the same time execute constant education campaigns for their users, especially for groups of older adults where they are reiterated not to provide information to third parties by any means other than going directly to a branch. physical.

In the case of Antit, our applications use biometric security to automate processes and provide greater security to our users based on the latest technology for this.

So far this year, the Ministry of Finance has reported an increase in telephone scams with the scam of help for the withdrawal request of the Labor Capitalization Fund (FCL), tax reduction, and data request for the Covid-19 issue.

Therefore, it is recommended to be suspicious of unknown or private numbers, demand data that confirms your real identity, and above all, never provide confidential data. Recently, the OIJ revealed the detection of a group of criminals who, through telephone calls from La Reforma, stole up to ¢ 20 million bank accounts.

Most of these attacks make use of social engineering, investigating the victim through social networks to obtain personal data and relevant information, which they use to gain the trust of the person, deceive them and impersonate an authentic entity.

As can be seen in the graph below, the province of San José has remained the most affected, only in the provinces of Puntarenas, Heredia, and Limón were there fewer complaints in the 2020 period.

During 2020 the banking industry has suffered significant attacks around the world, according to the findings of IBM Security and the cost of cyber data breaches amounts to $ 8.2 million.

Antit is a company focused on FinTech development that stands out in this regard, its applications are certified with Deloitte security audits.

And it is that with the simple use of a computer and Internet access, cyber criminals can cause damage from anonymity, targeting mainly financial institutions in Latin America.

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Currently, banks must maintain constant risk monitoring and invest in the use of more robust cybersecurity technologies, an investment that must be even greater and includes a risk diagnosis and a maturity assessment, to use the solutions that best suit the needs of the company.

Cybercrime evolves every day, therefore banks and companies, in general, must evolve in the detection mechanisms of these cybercriminals. Online crime already accounts for approximately half of all property crimes in the world.

Likewise, during 2020 the group of Older Adults is the second most affected with 114 complaints from them. As a consequence, this group has become one of the most vulnerable and one of the preferred targets of cybercriminals due to their excess of confidence.

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Costa Rica is ranked fifth in the Americas in Cybersecurity according to the National Cybersecurity Index, which includes 160 countries, our country is only preceded by the United States, Paraguay, Chile, and Canada.

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With the arrival of the pandemic, the use of online banking intensified, and with this the attacks on the security of these platforms, however, many of these violations happen due to the recklessness of the users themselves. After the computer scam, the second crime with the greatest repetition is identity theft.

The same as the law sanctions in its article 230 “with a prison sentence of one to three years who impersonates the identity of a natural or legal person or of a commercial brand in any social network, Internet site, electronic or information technology medium.  Identity theft refers to when someone accesses the information of a third party to commit fraud.

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