Tech Roundup: Why Brazil is so exposed to cyberattacks

This week’s topics: cyberattacks in Brazil. Landless Workers meet the financial market. AI used to democratize student loans.

Brazil suffers almost 900,000 cyberattacks every hour

In our increasingly digital and connected world, cyberattacks on businesses and individual users have become more common. According to data from cybersecurity company Akamai, there were more than 193 billion attempted credential theft attacks worldwide in 2020 alone. And the situation is no different in Brazil: the country faces no less than 894,000 cyberattacks every hour.

Higher numbers. Several surveys conducted between the beginning of last year and now show that such attacks are growing in Brazil, and that companies should take heed.

• The Inside CyberTech report, produced by Brazilian innovation think tank Distrito, showed that Brazil suffered more than 3.4 billion cyber attack attempts between January and September last year.
• Using data from Brazil’s securities commision (CVM), Grupo MZ reported that cyberattacks against Brazilian companies grew 220 percent in the first half of 2021.

Trend is growing. The rise of cyberattacks is not a new phenomenon, but it has been aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Several companies were forced to adapt to social isolation restrictions and redesign their entire work model in order to survive and guarantee their employees’ safety.

• Though many businesses already incorporated some form of remote work, the majority did not have enough time to execute all the changes needed and were left vulnerable to cyberattacks.
• “With the pandemic, certain digitization processes were accelerated and many companies began to put more emphasis on the use of the internet to do business. This resulted in a significant growth in the number of attacks,” says Claudio Baumann, general-director of Akamai in Brazil, speaking to The Brazilian Report

Need for improvement. However, those who believe that attacks could subside with the end of the pandemic are mistaken.  

• According to Mr. Baumann, the growth in the intensity, quantity, and sophistication of said attacks was already seen before 2020.
• “Attacks will...