The Rising Cyber Threat

Posted: January 26th, 2016

By Belisario Contreras

Belisario Contreras is the Cyber Security Program Manager at the Secretariat of the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE) of the Organization of American States (OAS). Since 2007, Contreras has played a part in the growth and improvement of Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) in the Americas, and has worked closely with Latin American governments on the development and adoption of National Cyber Security Strategies and Policies. Contreras is a Colombian citizen, and prior to joining the CICTE Secretariat worked at the Young American Business Trust (YABT), and he was a fellow of the Department of National Planning of Colombia in 2011.

With the growing threat of cyber attacks in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the Organization of American States (OAS) has been a crucial component in analyzing the threats’ origins and methods for defending against them. Belisario Contreras, the Cyber Security Program Manager at the OAS, spoke with The Cipher Brief about the cyber challenges facing LAC countries, and how the government and private sector can work together to best overcome them.

The Cipher Brief: How would you assess the cyber threat to Latin America? Who are the main culprits and what kinds of attacks are they conducting?

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+