A new report published this week by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Organization of American States (OAS) called on countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to step up their efforts on cybersecurity or face “potentially devastating” cyber attacks. Members of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies’ Cyber Readiness Index team collaborated with IDB, OAS, and other academic and policy institutions to analyze the cyber preparedness of 32 OAS countries based on 42 indicators. It is the first significant examination of the level of preparedness against growing cyber threats in Latin America and the Caribbean based on two unique frameworks.

While the “2016 Cybersecurity Report: Are we ready in Latin America and the Caribbean?” recognized that countries in the LAC region are accelerating their focus on cybersecurity and moving it upwards on their policy and social agendas, it ultimately concluded that most LAC countries are unprepared for the security challenges of the digital age.