According to Tigo Business's Security Operations Center (SOC), organizations in Panama received some 4 billion attempted cyberattacks in the last 12 months, over 50% more than the year before. La Estrella de Panamá published the figure on October 11, 2026, along with an assessment of more than 400 private companies carried out between September and December 2025.
Behind that number there aren't 4 billion people typing. Most attempts are automated: programs that search nonstop for an unpatched computer, a weak password or an email someone will open without thinking. That's why the size of your company doesn't protect you. One open door is enough.
What the numbers say
- Cybersecurity maturity: 46%. The acceptable risk level is considered to be below 25%, so the gap is 29 points.
- System updates (patching): 36%. It's one of the weakest areas: many companies don't keep their computers up to date.
- Vendor and third-party review: 34%. Access granted to vendors and to programs connected to the network is rarely reviewed.
The least prepared sectors
- Education: 44.6%.
- Retail and trade: 42.6%.
- Industry: 42.5%.
- The best prepared is the financial sector, at 64.4%, driven by regulation.
In 2025, the hardest hit were the public sector, telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing and retail. In logistics and trade the same problem keeps coming up: compromised business email, when someone takes over a company email account and uses it to request payments or change bank accounts.
What it means for your company
If you run a store, a distributor or an office with 10 or 20 computers, you're in the group that protects itself the least and gets attacked the most. And what fails most isn't expensive or complicated: it's the basics, done every day.
Where to start: 5 controls for this week
- Update Windows and your firewall. On October 13 Microsoft released its monthly patch, including a flaw attackers were already exploiting. Make sure every computer has the October updates and your firewall runs its latest version.
- Antivirus active on every computer. Including the cash register and accounting computers, with a valid license and updated in the last 7 days. If you have to ask each person to find out, you need to see it from a single console.
- Protect email. Turn on two-step verification on every company account and agree on one rule: no bank account change is accepted by email alone; it's confirmed by phone, at the number you already have.
- Separate your networks. Your customers' WiFi can't be on the same network as your cash register or your accounting system. A firewall creates separate networks.
- List who has access. Vendors, technicians and programs connected to your network: who gets in, to what and until when. Whatever is no longer used gets closed.
When to ask for help
Latin America is short about 300,000 cybersecurity professionals, according to the same report. For a Panamanian SMB, having someone dedicated only to this is rarely possible. That's why experts recommend managed services: a team that watches your antivirus and your firewall, handles the alerts and warns you before anything expires.
At VALTRIOM we manage ESET antivirus and your firewall from Panama. If you want to know where your company stands against these numbers, fill out the form and we'll contact you.
Source: «Ataques informáticos en Panamá aumentan 50 % anual: ¿cuáles son los sectores más vulnerables?» (Cyberattacks in Panama grow 50% a year: which sectors are most vulnerable?), La Estrella de Panamá, October 11, 2026, with data from Tigo Business's Security Operations Center. Read the article.