Almost 1 in 4 Brazilians have been victims of cybercrime, making the country number one in the world for phishing via WhatsApp. The post How Brazil became one of the epicenters of cybercrime appeared first on The World from PRX.
Isabel Cristina de Camargo, a retired teacher living in Carapicuíba, in the São Paulo metropolitan area, was excited when she received a message on the social media platform WhatsApp in May. It said she had a lot of points to redeem on her credit card.
She clicked on the link, but couldn’t redeem the points.
The next day, she got a WhatsApp call showing her bank’s logo, and a woman identified herself as Marilia, her bank manager’s name.
“She told me, ‘If you want to redeem your points, I can take care of it for you now,’” Camargo said.
Camargo was told to log into her bank account, and the woman guided her through the steps. “She said, ‘Click here,’ and I did. And then she said, ‘Now, you type your password,’” she said.
Camargo was told to do the same with another account. But then, in only a few minutes, she lost $3,800 reais, or about $700, more than her monthly pension.
Camargo became so distressed that she was admitted to the hospital. “I changed a lot, I’m even afraid of my cell phone. I put it on silent and I don’t pick up calls anymore,” she said.
Online crime has become rampant in Brazil. In July, police arrested a suspect behind the largest cyberattack against financial institutions in the country. At least $100 million was stolen from several banks. Almost 1 in 4 Brazilians have been victims of cybercrime, and the country is number one in the world for phishing via WhatsApp.
“On Whatsapp, there are a hundred types of different schemes,” said Wanderson Castilho, the CEO of the cybersecurity firm Enetsec, which has offices in Brazil and in Boca Raton, Florida. He said that for any business that exists, there is a way to create a scheme for it.
One of the reasons cybercrime is so big in the country is because Brazilians are huge internet users. More than 90% of households here are connected to the web.
And online banking is extremely popular. Digital transactions account for 80% of total banking operations in Brazil, particularly using Pix, an instant payment system similar to Zelle.
Castilho said criminals have moved from the physical to the digital space. “It’s cheaper, it’s less dangerous for them and when they get caught, the jail time is much shorter than the physical one.”
Even Castilho’s cousin, Lucienne Cohene, has been a victim of a scam recently. She’s a holistic therapist who lives in Itapoá, in Santa Catarina state.
“I follow my cousin on TikTok, on Instagram,” she said. “I knew a lot about schemes. I shouldn’t have been a victim.”
Cohene fell for two consecutive schemes via WhatsApp in April — with hackers impersonating her daughter and her bank. She lost $28,000 reais, or $5,000. That’s the equivalent of 18 times the monthly minimum wage in Brazil.
“It was particularly hard because of how I was treated,” she explained. “The police didn’t care, I filed a report just to show it to the bank. The bank didn’t care either.”
Cyber cops
The Cybercrime Police Division, located in São Paulo’s downtown area, was created in 2020.
It has about 60 officers and only deals with organized cybercrime.
Guilherme Gueiros, a lawyer with the legal services firm Opice Blum, was sitting in the waiting area of the police station in early July. “At least once a week, I’m here clocking in and clocking out,” he said.
The firm represents companies that have lost tens of millions of dollars through cybercrime and he said schemes are only increasing at a dizzying pace.
“We see that the attacks are getting more complex, more targeted,” he said. “The hackers are getting better prepared and the challenge for us is escalating.”
Gueiros said some investigations can take years, and only 30 to 50% of the firm’s clients get some money back.
“There are a huge number of schemes, and the police can’t investigate them all,” said Renato Topan, one of the deputy-police-chiefs of the cybercrime division.
They have about 1,000 cases being investigated at any given time, and he said that about 60% lead to indictments — lower than other crimes.
Topan said it’s easy to open a bank account in Brazil, and there are many online banks. He explained that organized crime gangs often hire poor people to open accounts for them.
“The stolen money passes through hundreds of those small accounts, making it harder for us to track the money,” he said.
Cybercrime in Brazil exploded in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as people started doing everything online.
“The user is the weak link,” said Carlos Afonso Gonçalves da Silva, the director of IT at the Department of Intelligence at the São Paulo Civil Police. “Ideally, people should get permits to do different things with their cell phones. Category A: just for phone calls. Category B: for calls and texts. Category C: to access your bank and shop online,” he said.
The police’s cybercrime division doesn’t deal with most small thefts. Those are investigated by local precincts. But there are just 20,000 police officers to cover the whole state of São Paulo, and they receive 3 million police reports a year, Silva added.
“Twenty thousand men to investigate rape, domestic violence, highjacking. Digital crime ends up being last,” he said.
Meanwhile, many believe things will only get worse. Cybercrime doesn’t have borders, and experts say that many of the gangs in Brazil have connections with other criminals in the United States and across Africa.
The post How Brazil became one of the epicenters of cybercrime appeared first on The World from PRX.
