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:
- New tool automates phishing attacks that bypass 2FA
January 9, 2019
A new penetration testing tool published at the start of the year by a security researcher can automate phishing attacks with an ease never seen before and can even blow through login operations for accounts protected by two-factor authentication (2FA). Named Modlishka –the English pronunciation of the Polish word for mantis– this new tool was created ...
- Ransomware MongoLock Immediately Deletes Files, Formats Backup Drives
January 8, 2019
We have been following a new wave of MongoLock ransomware attacks that immediately deletes files upon infection instead of encrypting it, and further scans for other available folders and drives for file deletion. In the wild since December 2018, the ransomware demands a payment of 0.1 bitcoin from victims within 24 hours to retrieve the ...
- GandCrab Operators Use Vidar Infostealer as a Forerunner
January 7, 2019
Cybercriminals behind GandCrab have added the infostealer Vidar in the process for distributing the ransomware piece, which helps increase their profits by pilfering sensitive information before encrypting the computer files. Following the trails of a malvertising campaign targeting users of torrent trackers and video streaming websites, malware researchers found that Fallout Exploit Kit was used to ...
- Your Word is Your Bond: Trust and Ethics in Underground Forums
January 7, 2019
Although the general public thinks of underground forums as a place where scams and suspicious dealings are rampant, the opposite is usually true: the threat actors who inhabit these sites often consider their reputation a major asset. Many of the individuals and groups in underground forums go to great lengths to ensure that transactions go through ...
- Angela Merkel’s personal details leaked on Twitter
January 4, 2019
An unknown hacker has released confidential data linked to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and hundreds of the country’s other politicians. The stolen details were released on Twitter over the past few weeks in a sort of Advent Calendar and included bills and credit card information, phone numbers, email addresses, photo identification and personal chat histories. The Twitter ...
- Phishing template uses fake fonts to decode content and evade detection
January 3, 2019
Proofpoint researchers recently observed a phishing kit with peculiar encoding utilized in a credential harvesting scheme impersonating a major retail bank. While encoded source code and various obfuscation mechanisms have been well documented in phishing kits, this technique appears to be unique for the time being in its use of web fonts to implement the encoding. When the ...