Government payment system suffers hack attempt during ‘cyber blackout’

The so-called “cyber blackout” that occurred last Friday (19) continues to unfold. Although the incident in Brazil did not cause as many problems as in the US, it was found that during the blackout, government payment systems were subject to illegal access attempts.

The Security Incident Response Group (GRIS), attached to the Institutional Security Bureau (GSI) of the Presidency of the Republic, has issued an alert after attempts were detected to penetrate government systems, mainly Siafi, which is used for payments to the Union.

How the attempted hack into government systems happened during the ‘cyber blackout’

Fake Addresses: At least 35 fake email addresses were identified during the cyber outage. These addresses were created with the goal of obtaining confidential information from the federal government. Malicious Activity: According to the GSI, several “threat actors” took advantage of issues with the company CrowdStrike to commit fraud. They posed as agents of the company to illegally obtain internal government data. Target: The Integrated Financial Administration System (Siafi), which is used for federal budget payments, was one of the primary targets of the access attempts.

Criminals took advantage of the ‘cyber blackout’ to try to break into government systems (Image: Song_about_summer/Shutterstock)

Preventive measures taken by GSI

GRIS’s warning is intended to prevent situations similar to the SIAFI hack that occurred in April, when criminals managed to gain access to the system and divert federal funds. To protect data and the integrity of government financial transactions, officials should:

Verify sources: Seek information only from legitimate and trustworthy sources. Strengthen security measures: Implement additional security measures to prevent intrusions and cyberattacks. Continuous monitoring: GSI will continue to monitor the situation and take measures to mitigate risks.

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Blackout involves Microsoft users and cybersecurity firm (Image: Angelus_Svetlana/Shutterstock)

The federal police are also investigating the case to identify those responsible for the illegal access attempts.

Other Brazilian government systems hit by cyber outage

The Supreme Court said the glitch responsible for the “cybernetic blackout” had been identified in one of the agency’s systems, but that the STF portal had been restored by Friday morning. The judicial and administrative systems were also functioning properly yesterday morning.

In a note sent to Agência Brasil, the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services stated that the GOV.BR network had not been affected. So far, only the National Land Transportation Agency has reported instabilities in its technological environment, which were promptly resolved.