By: Leonardo Neri
According to studies conducted by cybersecurity experts, companies have become more vulnerable due to remote work access, or home office. This study, based on data provided by Kaspersky, shows that attacks using remote access tools increased by 3,331,000 in Brazil, specifically between February and April of this year. However, it is not yet possible to confirm how many of these resulted in double extortion.
However, the most common digital crime acts as follows: Hackers invade systems, steal data, encrypt (a set of techniques to encrypt writing, making it unintelligible to those who do not have access to the agreed conventions) the internal network and, later, ask for a ransom for the release of the stolen information, to prevent it from being sold or disclosed in parallel markets, such as the “deep web”.
El País states that in Brazil, CPFL, Cosan, Aliansce Sonae and Arteris have already been victims of this criminal action, in addition to the Portuguese company EDP, which operates in the electricity sector in the Latin American country.
In a survey, around 11 gangs are involved in double extortion crimes. The hackers attacked at least 100 companies, at least 22 of which refused to pay, and their data was auctioned off on forums in real time.
One example of an auction involves the personal data of pop star Mariah Carey, with the starting bid being around US$1,400,000. Another case, led by the cybercriminal group called Neflim, shows data from the systems of the companies Cosan, Aliansce Sonae and Arteris on hacker forums.
In Latin America, Brazil leads the number of attacks, accounting for around 60% of the total (47.5 million), followed by Colombia (11.9 million), Mexico (9.3 million), Chile (4.3 million), Peru (3.6 million) and Argentina (2.6 million).
Carlos Sampaio, IT manager at CESAR, warned that the increase in cases during the pandemic is no coincidence. “Uncertified networks, open routers, a greater volume of connections in the neighborhood, all of these can become entry points for people with bad intentions.”
Source: El País