A cyberattack represents far more than a temporary IT headache for modern businesses. Data loss, operational downtime, and financial fraud can trigger unexpected recovery costs while eroding one of a company’s most valuable assets: customer trust.
According to the ESET Security Report Latin America 2026, 52.7% of surveyed organizations across the region detected at least one cyberattack attempt over the past year. Even more concerning, 15.4% of businesses could not confirm whether they had suffered an incident at all—highlighting a critical blind spot in corporate digital visibility.
Cybersecurity as a Core Business Strategy
These findings underscore an urgent reality: cybersecurity can no longer be treated as an isolated IT issue. For ESET, a firm specializing in proactive threat detection, digital defense must be integrated directly into executive risk management to safeguard daily operations, financial stability, and commercial partnerships.
“The impact of a cyberattack goes beyond technological infrastructure. A security breach can compromise critical information, disrupt operations, and generate recovery costs, in addition to affecting corporate reputation. Therefore, cyber risk management must be part of the business strategy and not be limited to the IT department.”
— Érick Argüello, Country Manager, ESET Costa Rica
Closing the Visibility Gap: Detection and Response
When a security breach occurs, the fallout ripples across the entire organization, leading to service outages and breached client contracts. Yet, timely detection remains one of the biggest hurdles for regional enterprises. The ESET report reveals that among organizations that did not report any attacks, 25.1% admit incidents could have slipped past their defenses undetected due to a lack of adequate monitoring technology.
To close this gap, cybersecurity specialists recommend bolstering detection and response capabilities through two key approaches:
- Managed Detection and Response (MDR): ESET MDR pairs artificial intelligence with human cybersecurity analysts to deliver 24/7 continuous monitoring. This allows companies to proactively spot threats, investigate suspicious behavior, and contain attacks rapidly without relying solely on overburdened internal IT teams.
- Extended Detection and Response (XDR): Powered by ESET Inspect (a module within the ESET PROTECT platform), XDR provides deep system visibility. It enables security teams to identify anomalies, assess risk levels, and remediate incidents before they escalate into full-scale operational crises.
Top Threats Compromising Business Continuity
Alongside visibility gaps, Latin American enterprises face rapidly evolving attack vectors:
- Phishing Remains Dominant: Digital deception is still the leading entry point for attackers. Recent data shows 73% of surveyed organizations were impacted by phishing campaigns—using fraudulent emails, messages, or spoofed websites to steal credentials and facilitate fraud.
- The Double-Edged Sword of AI: Artificial intelligence is reshaping the threat landscape. While 56.3% of surveyed professionals believe AI will enable more sophisticated cyberattacks, 39.2% of organizations still lack internal governance or policies regulating how employees use AI tools
5 Essential Steps to Build Digital Resilience
To mitigate these risks and protect operational continuity, ESET recommends that organizations implement five foundational measures:
- Strengthen Detection and Response: Establish continuous network monitoring and clear incident-response protocols to investigate and contain threats quickly.
- Secure Access Points: Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across corporate accounts to block unauthorized logins, even if passwords are compromised.
- Invest in Employee Training: Regularly train staff to spot phishing attempts, social engineering tactics, and fraudulent communications.
- Back Up Critical Data: Maintain regular, isolated data backups alongside tested disaster-recovery plans to ensure rapid restoration after an incident.
- Enforce Clear Security Policies: Keep all software and systems patched, and establish strict internal guidelines for the safe, responsible use of artificial intelligence.
“Digital resilience does not depend solely on having protection tools, but on the ability to use them to detect and contain threats in a timely manner,” Argüello notes. “Combining technologies like XDR with MDR services strengthens incident response and reduces their potential impact on business operations.”
In an era where business growth is inseparable from digital infrastructure, proactive threat detection and specialized incident response are no longer optional—they are essential investments to protect profits, client trust, and long-term reputation.
