A massive leak of photos of Brazilians – allegedly from police databases – is being offered for free on a forum on the Deep Web. The package available for download contains over 300,000 images – identified Monday night by experts from Solo Iron – the cybersecurity unit of Solo Network, one of the largest IT integrators in Brazil.
“To access the forum, you need credits that can be purchased. With access to the forum, and using these credits, it is possible to download the photos for free,” explains Felipe Guimarães, Head of the Cybersecurity Team at Solo Iron. Some images may supposedly originate from the Civil Police of Espírito Santo – and many appear to be of people allegedly arrested. However, thousands of photos are in the format of images used in Brazilian documents, making their use in criminal activities possible. The origin of the images has not yet been confirmed.
The photos can be used by criminals to attempt to create fake bank accounts and fraudulent credit applications; they can also facilitate advanced fraud through the creation of deepfakes.
Companies on alert
Guimarães explains that the leak could trigger a significant increase in financial fraud, since criminals have access to potential data that allows them to create fake profiles with an authentic appearance and the creation of deepfakes. “We recommend that companies – especially those in the financial sector – increase their level of alert in the coming days due to the potential for fraud, and because the images are being distributed for free, further increasing the possible volume of fraud attempts,” he states.
It's not just companies that need to be on alert. Consumers should also be wary of suspicious communications from financial institutions – especially those requesting confirmation of data, whether by email or phone. “It's not difficult, using image search, to find preliminary data about the owner of the photograph, such as name, social media links, age, email, among others. Therefore, in case of any suspicious contact, the consumer should contact the financial institution or consumer protection agencies,” says Guimarães.
According to studies by Solo Iron, Brazil is a country with unique characteristics when it comes to cybercrime. Local groups – focused on financial fraud – have at their disposal on the dark web a series of tools for defrauding individuals, from credit card fraud to PIX (Brazil's instant payment system). These criminals have been working alongside global actors, carrying out financial extortion against Brazilian companies, mainly through the use of ransomware and data kidnapping.
