Impact of Guacamaya leaks of LatAm countries’ data examined

Significant leaks of documents from military and police agencies in different countries in Latin America by the hacktivist collective Guacamaya have shed light on the environmental and human rights abuses across the region, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Each of the impacted countries including Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, and El Salvador had varying responses to the leaks, said Dilmar Villena, executive director of rights group Hiper Derecho. "The response that the governments gave has to do with the level of attention that public opinion has given to it. In some cases there were changes of ministers and high command of the army; however, in other countries, such as the Peruvian case, there was no great response or institutional changes about it," said Villena. However, the Guacamaya leaks have prompted more discussions on cybersecurity gaps in Latin American institutions, according to Maria Paz Canales, executive director of nonprofit Derechos Digitales. "They relied a lot on the fact that because they are powerful institutions inside their own countries, that they are in some way beyond the actions of other groups that can access to their systems and information. At the same time, there is a huge deficit in terms of the knowledge and sophistication that they have for protecting their own systems," added Canales.