Latin America is the new hot target for cyber criminals -- especially when it comes to illegally tapping into government, finance or energy agencies.

A Trend Micro report says that the top two types of attacks were identified to be ones on industrial control systems followed by home-grown crimeware kits.

Financial rewards -- more so than hacktivism -- were cited as the top motivators for cyber crime across the region.

Between 2011 and 2012, cyber security incidents were up by nearly 40 percent, it said. Over a period of 28 days, 39 attacks from 14 different countries were recorded.

Of those 39 attacks, 12 were said to be unique and could be classified as “targeted,” but 13 were repeated by several of the same culprits over a period of several days, the report said.