Latin America suffers 1 billion malware attacks in 2018

Latin America sees an average 3,7 million malware attacks a day and about 1 billion occurrences a year, according to a report by Kaspersky Lab.

The numbers mean a 14,5 percent increase in malware attacks in the region between November 2017 and November 2018, says the research.

Latin countries that have been targeted the most are Argentina, where there has been a 62 percent rise in malware attacks, followed by Peru with 39 percent and Mexico with 35 percent.

Phishing attacks are also on the rise in the region, according to the security firm, with 192,000 attacks a day, up 115 percent compared to the period between November 2016 and the same month in 2017.

Of Latin American countries that suffer phishing attacks the most, Mexico ranks first with a 120 percent increase, followed by Colombia with 118 percent and Brazil, with a 110 percent rise in that type of security occurrence.

Last week, it emerged that more than 2,000 mobile banking users in Brazil have unknowingly downloaded an Android-based malware that controlled devices and stole their confidential data.

As well as banks like Bradesco, Brazil's second-largest institution, the Android-based malware is also used to perform phishing attacks in other applications, including Uber, Netflix and Twitter.