Brazil probes emergency warning system after nationwide rogue alert


The Brazilian National Secretariat for Civil Protection and Defense (SEDEC) and Federal Police (PF) are investigating a suspected hack of the country’s emergency alert system after an unauthorized “extreme” alert pinged devices across the country.

Defesa Civil Nacional confirmed that its dispatch platform, often used to inform the public about severe weather events, was taken offline in the early hours of Saturday, June 20, after Brazilians reported the alert, which read: “Alerta extremo – Defesa Civil:misantropi4.”

“Misantropia” is Portuguese for misanthropy, hatred of humankind.

Read more…
Source:  The Register


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Europol publishes IOCTA spotlight report on online fraud schemes

    December 19, 2023

    Europol’s spotlight report on online fraud highlights that online fraud schemes represent a major crime threat in the EU and beyond as online fraudsters generate multiple billions in illicit profits every year to the detriment of individuals, companies and public institutions. Fraud schemes are perpetrated with the intention of defrauding victims of their assets using false ...

  • A Log4Shell Retrospective – Overblown and Exaggerated

    December 18, 2023

    Two years ago, CVE-2021-44228 sent the security industry into a panic. The vulnerability, better known as Log4Shell, had security professionals working overtime through the holidays hunting down vulnerable log4j libraries. At the time, there was fear and confusion around what software was affected, which were exploitable, and where attackers would attack next. The reality was that ...

  • Xfinity discloses a data breach but doesn’t say how many users are affected

    December 18, 2023

    Xfinity is notifying customers of a “data security incident” it says resulted in the theft of customer information, including usernames, passwords, contact information, and more. In a notice on Monday, Xfinity says “there was unauthorized access” to its systems from October 16th to October 19th, 2023. Xfinity traces the breach to a security vulnerability disclosed by ...

  • Coverage Advisory for CVE-2023-50164: Apache Struts Path Traversal and File Upload Vulnerability

    December 18, 2023

    CVE-2023-50164 is a path traversal flaw that allows a remote attacker to upload malicious files to vulnerable servers. After successful exploitation, an attacker can achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) on the target server. An attacker exploiting such a vulnerability can access, upload, or modify important files, steal sensitive information, disrupt critical services, or move laterally on ...

  • #StopRansomware: Play Ransomware

    December 18, 2023

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC) are releasing this joint CSA to disseminate the Play ransomware group’s IOCs and TTPs identified through FBI investigations as recently as October 2023. Since June 2022, the Play (also known as Playcrypt) ransomware group ...

  • MongoDB, North Face owner VF Corp and Mr. Cooper fall victim to cyberattacks

    December 18, 2023

    It has been a busy few days on the cybersecurity front as three notable companies confirmed hacks over the last two days: MongoDB Inc., North Face and Vans owner VF Corp., and mortgage broker Mr. Cooper Group Inc. The first hack, that of MongoDB, was confirmed over the weekend and involved its corporate systems being breached ...