Credential Theft in Latin America: Three Attack and Defense Vectors

For over a decade, credential theft has remained a persistent threat in the global digital landscape. In Latin America, the situation worsens as digitalization and online fraud advance, creating an environment where unauthorized access to sensitive data multiplies at an accelerated pace. According to SOCRadar reports from 2025, the region recorded over 2.6 million compromised credentials in recent months, reflecting a concerning trend affecting both users and organizations alike. Access to an email account opens the door to banking services, corporate platforms, financial information, and medical histories, amplifying the impact of each successful theft.

Eset, a cybersecurity company, has categorized the main mechanisms behind these thefts into three distinct methodologies that vary in complexity, scope, and sophistication. Understanding how these methods operate is essential for users and organizations to implement effective defenses.

How Social Engineering Thefts Work

Social engineering remains the most accessible and effective technique for attackers, especially when used correctly. Phishing stands out as the predominant method within this category, allowing criminals to capture thousands of credentials with relatively low investment.

Attackers typically impersonate public entities or well-known companies, leveraging the trust users place in these brands. The standard procedure involves sending emails or messages that mimic authentic notifications, creating a sense of urgency through scenarios such as account issues, rejected payments, or reservation problems. These messages contain links directing to fraudulent sites that faithfully replicate the original interfaces, capturing usernames and passwords before the victim realizes the deception.

An equally effective variant exploits search engines, where attackers pay for sponsored ads to position fake sites as top results. By cloning the appearance of banks, email platforms, cloud services, or legitimate corporations, they can deceive even experienced users who search trusting the verification algorithms.

Malware and Automated Extraction Tools

The second operational method involves distributing malicious software specifically designed to compromise devices and extract data in the background. Once malware is installed, thefts occur silently, often without the affected user being aware of what has happened.

Infostealers, keyloggers, and spyware continuously gather sensitive information: stored passwords in browsers, autocomplete data, application credentials, and active session details. This ecosystem of tools has grown significantly, with figures demonstrating their impact in 2025.

Banking Trojans exceeded 650,000 unique detections during the previous period, representing a threat specifically targeting financial systems. Within this group, the Guildma family accumulated approximately 110,000 detections, establishing itself as one of the most persistent and regionally distributed vectors of theft.

Organizational Data Breaches: The Weak Link in Protection

The third significant source of theft comes from attacks on corporate infrastructure, when databases are exposed due to vulnerabilities or system failures. In these critical scenarios, complete credentials are leaked, directly exposing access data.

Even when passwords remain protected, extracted email addresses and usernames are later reused in credential stuffing attacks or brute-force attempts. Martina López, a cybersecurity researcher at Eset Latin America, notes that “there are also threats that employ brute-force techniques,” expanding the range of methods attackers use to exploit leaked data.

Strategies to Prevent and Respond to Access Theft

To significantly reduce the risk of becoming a victim of theft, experts recommend implementing a series of fundamental preventive measures. These include maintaining unique and strong passwords for each service, enabling multi-factor authentication as an additional security layer. Additionally, develop skepticism toward unexpected messages, use trusted password managers, keep systems and applications updated, and regularly review access logs and unusual activity histories.

If a password has already been compromised, the response should include immediately changing all reused passwords, logging out of active sessions on unknown devices, verifying unauthorized changes in account settings, and running comprehensive security tools on potentially affected devices.

López emphasizes that “staying informed is vital to staying ahead of the latest cybersecurity trends,” highlighting the importance of ongoing education as a complement to technical measures implemented to strengthen defenses against increasingly sophisticated thefts.