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Breaches/International/File 25-0317

Scams Against Individuals Rose Sharply Across Latin America in 2025

Scams against individuals rose sharply across Latin America in 2025, alongside remote-access fraud and stolen-device incidents. It is the category this corpus is worst at seeing.

Constructed geometry · not a chart of case data
JurisdictionUSAthe affected organisation’s jurisdiction, not the actor’s suspected origin
TargetLatin American consumers
ActorMultiple
S. Rosler11 min readConfidence: medium2 sources reviewed

Reporting on Latin America records social engineering scams rising around 155% in 2025, with malware, remote-access fraud and stolen-device incidents also climbing sharply.

Remote-Access Fraud Is The Same Technique The Enterprise Files Describe

Persuading a person to install remote-access software and then operating their session is, structurally, what happens at 25-0806 when an employee is talked through authorising a connected application, and at 25-0514 when support agents are recruited.

The difference is the authority level of the person being persuaded. This desk filed at 25-1122 that treating the enterprise version as adversary tradecraft and the consumer version as carelessness does not survive the comparison, and this file is the same argument in a second region.

Stolen-Device Fraud Is A Category The Corpus Has Never Recorded

A physically stolen phone, unlocked or coerced open, gives an attacker the device that is the second factor, the banking application already authenticated, and the messages used to reset everything else.

It is the identity-boundary problem at 25-0813 without any network involvement at all. This database has 350 files and none of them cover it, because it produces no notification, no defendant, and nothing for a security vendor to detect.

A 155% Rise Should Be Read Carefully

Scam figures depend heavily on reporting and on the definitions used, and 25-0509 established that reported fraud is a fraction of actual fraud by a factor of two to three.

A large percentage increase in a poorly-reported category can reflect improved reporting as easily as increased fraud. Graded medium: the direction is consistent across regional sources and the magnitude should not be quoted.

This is an analysis file

Built on published regional research, listed below. Growth figures derive from reported incidents and are sensitive to reporting behaviour. Corrections: corrections@forensicpost.com.

Sources
  1. Fraud rockets higher in mobile-first Latin AmericaDark Reading
  2. Latin America cyberattacks surge: 2025 threat reportKiteworks
S. Rosler
Covers extortion groups and leak-site economics. Verifies our sample sets.
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