Arrest of hacker responsible for leaking massive data containing sensitive personal information
The Federal Police of Brazil announced the arrest of the hacker involved in a breach that led to the leak of approximately 2.9 billion records containing sensitive personal information, including social security numbers. This breach was revealed last August, where the leaked data was offered for sale on the dark web by an entity known as USDoD.
According to BleepingComputer, the hacker was linked to entities selling Federal Police data. The hacker also took pride in disclosing personal data of nearly 80,000 members of the FBI’s InfraGard program, as stated in the ministry’s release.
In a related context, security researchers at Atlas developed a specialized tool to search through the leaked records, stating to PCMag that the leak contains about 272 million unique social security numbers, in addition to up to 600 million phone numbers.
As the aftermath of the incident escalates, National Public Data and its parent company, Jericho Pictures, filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of US law due to a flood of lawsuits and potential sanctions.
Regarding the case, the translation stated that “the suspect under investigation must be held accountable for a computer hacking offense, which involves obtaining information, with increased penalties for commercially exploiting the acquired data.” The arrest operation of the hacker was named “Data Breach Operation.”
The Federal Police indicated that they will continue investigating whether the hacker has committed any other breaches.
