By: Leonardo Neri

In mid-August, the Rio de Janeiro City Hall database suffered a serious attack by cybercriminals. The authorities in charge reported that websites across all sectors, from finance to healthcare, had been down. Given the seriousness of the incident, normal access was only restored a week after the incident.

Despite the fact that several areas were affected, it is necessary to highlight that the most affected was the popular “Nota Carioca”, which consequently led to the need to include the RPS (provisional service receipts).

For clarification purposes, the aforementioned Nota Carioca is considered a modality that was accepted by the Municipal Finance Department of Rio de Janeiro, aiming to contribute to the reduction of tax evasion in the region. Thus, this benefit will be granted to all customers who, at the time of purchase at the establishment, provide their CPF.

Furthermore, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro further clarified that, even with the reestablishment of the system, the maintenance of the pages offline was adhered to as a means of preserving data and the security of information stored digitally.

After the necessary acts were carried out by the city's technology employees, it is important to emphasize that the recovered system refers to payments from the Finance Department, so that it allows for the settlement of arrears with servers and suppliers, in addition to the deposit of benefits and assistance, as well as the advance payment of Temporary Housing Assistance, in which the participation of the Invoice was necessary for approval, that is, a system of extreme importance to the State government.

Finally, it is concluded that, as previously disclosed, hacker groups always aim to steal government data, or sometimes personal data for possible scams or threats, therefore, it becomes extremely important and necessary to adhere to security measures, thus avoiding the leak of confidential data.

Source: https://valor-globo-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/valor.globo.com/google/amp/brasil/noticia/2022/08/24/rio-regulariza-emisso-de-nota-carioca-aps-ataque-hacker.ghtml
https://www.tecmundo.com.br/mercado/244265-nota-carioca-site-volta-funcionar-ataque-cibernetico.htm

With the collaboration of Barbara Gomes and Pedro Sobolewski