Technology

Mega leak may have exposed data from 102 million mobile accounts on deep web

The data would be for sale and would include cell phone numbers, name and address of the number owners, duration of calls, among others.

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  • The suspicious database was identified on the deep web using dfndr enterprise, a business protection solution against data leakage.
  • If confirmed, this will be the second data leak discovered in Brazil in 2021.

A possible data leakage in Brazil may have exposed information from almost 102 million cell phone accounts, according to the digital security company PSafe. The company, which operates in Brazil and the United States, said it had identified a database with sensitive data from telephone companies. If confirmed, this will be the second data leak discovered in Brazil in 2021.

PSafe identified the suspicious database on the deep web using its flagship app dfndr. According to the company, the data would be for sale and would include cell phone numbers, the numbers’ owners’ names and addresses, among others.

PSafe has already notified the National Data Protection Authority in Brazil, linked to the Federal Government.

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To check the veracity of the database detected by the dfndr enterprise, the PSafe team contacted the criminal and requested a sample of the database offered for sale.

According to reports on some news sites, the leaked data are from the base of two Brazilian telephone companies, which would be Vivo and Claro, but PSafe does not confirm the origin of the data. This confirmation depends on an investigation carried out by the Brazilian authorities.

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Marco DeMello, PSafe’s CEO, said that corporate data security incidents are increasingly common. “How these data were obtained is still unclear. What we can say is that business data leaks are more and more frequent and home office workers are the main target of cybercriminals.”

In a statement to the newspaper O Globo, the telephone companies denied the leaks. Vivo reported that “it has the strictest controls on access to its consumers’ data” and that “there was no data leak incident.” Claro said it did not identify any data leaks and that PSafe did not find evidence to prove the criminals’ allegation.

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