Brazilian authorities reportedly have arrested a 33-year-old man on suspicion of being “USDoD,” a prolific cybercriminal who rose to infamy in 2022 after infiltrating the FBI’s InfraGard program and leaking contact data for 80,000 members. Extra just lately, USDoD was behind a breach on the shopper information dealer Nationwide Public Knowledge that led to the leak of Social Safety numbers and different private data for a good portion of the U.S. inhabitants.
USDoD’s InfraGard gross sales thread on Breached.
The Brazilian information outlet TV Globo first reported the information of USDoD’s arrest, saying the Federal Police arrested a 33-year-old man from Belo Horizonte. In line with TV Globo, USDoD is needed domestically in reference to the theft of information on Brazilian Federal Cops.
USDoD was identified to make use of the hacker handles “Equation Corp” and “NetSec,” and based on the cyber intelligence platform Intel 471 NetSec posted a thread on the now-defunct cybercrime neighborhood RaidForums on Feb. 22, 2022, through which they provided the e-mail handle and password for 659 members of the Brazilian Federal Police.
TV Globo didn’t identify the person arrested, however the Portuguese tech information outlet Tecmundo revealed a report in August 2024 that named USDoD as 33-year-old Luan BG from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Techmundo stated it discovered the hacker’s actual identification after being given a draft of an in depth, personal report produced by the safety agency CrowdStrike.
CrowdStrike didn’t reply to a request for remark. However per week after Techmundo’s piece, the tech information publication hackread.com revealed a narrative through which USDoD reportedly admitted that CrowdStrike was correct in figuring out him. Hackread stated USDoD shared a press release, which was partially addressed to CrowdStrike:
A latest assertion by USDoD, after he was efficiently doxed by CrowdStrike and different safety companies. Picture: Hackread.com.
In August 2024, a cybercriminal started promoting Social Safety numbers and different private data stolen from Nationwide Public Knowledge, a personal information dealer in Florida that collected and offered SSNs and phone information for a big slice of the American inhabitants.
Extra reporting revealed Nationwide Public Knowledge had inadvertently revealed its personal passwords on the Web. The corporate is now the goal of a number of class-action lawsuits, and just lately declared chapter. In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, USDoD acknowledged stealing the NPD information earlier this yr, however claimed he was not concerned in leaking or promoting it.
In December 2022, KrebsOnSecurity broke the information that USDoD had social-engineered his approach into the FBI’s InfraGard program, an FBI initiative designed to construct casual data sharing partnerships with vetted professionals within the personal sector regarding cyber and bodily threats to important U.S. nationwide infrastructure.
USDoD utilized for InfraGard membership utilizing the identification of the CEO of a serious U.S. monetary firm. Despite the fact that USDoD listed the true cell phone variety of the CEO, the FBI apparently by no means reached the CEO to validate his software, as a result of the request was granted just some weeks later. After that, USDoD stated he used a easy program to gather all the contact data shared by greater than 80,000 InfraGard members.
The FBI declined to touch upon studies about USDoD’s arrest.
In a prolonged September 2023 interview with databreaches.internet, USDoD informed the publication he was a person in his mid-30s who was born in South America and who holds twin citizenship in Brazil and Portugal. Towards the top of that interview, USDoD stated they have been planning to launch a platform for buying army intelligence from the US.
Databreaches.internet informed KrebsOnSecurity USDoD has been an everyday correspondent since that 2023 interview, and that after being doxed USDoD made inquiries with an area lawyer to be taught if there have been any open investigations or prices towards him.
“From what the lawyer came upon from the federal police, that they had no open circumstances or prices towards him at the moment,” Databreaches.internet stated. “From his writing to me and the conversations we had, my sense is he had completely no thought he was in imminent hazard of being arrested.”
When KrebsOnSecurity final communicated with USDoD through Telegram on Aug. 15, 2024, they claimed they have been “planning to retire and transfer on from this,” referring to a number of media studies that blamed USDoD for leaking practically three billion shopper information from Nationwide Public Knowledge.
Lower than 4 days later, nevertheless, USDoD was again on his regular hang-out at BreachForums, posting customized exploit code he claimed to have written to assault just lately patched vulnerabilities in a preferred theme made for WordPress web sites.
