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The Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection has reportedly asked the country’s agencies to protect citizens whose private information may have been compromised in a data breach announced Tuesday.
Nearly 223 million Brazilians’ information was exposed in the massive data breach, including names, addresses, current income, personal vehicle information, tax returns, and more, according to Bestgamingpro. Reportedly, the information has been discovered for sale on the dark web.
“What we have today is a single certainty, that the citizen is completely adrift. Fear is a constant, with fraud attempts increasing every day due to the amount of data that was leaked,” Michel Roberto de Souza stated, the lawyer for the consumer protection group. “Institutions must investigate and punish, but they must also inform and guide citizens about what is happening. We need a lot of transparency as well as timely and adequate solutions.”
The consumer protection group has reportedly sent notices to several government agencies, including the National Data Protection Authority and the National Consumer Secretariat with the Federal Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the National Congress, urging them to enact measures to help protect hundreds of millions of Brazilians exposed. According to the group, the data breach violates Brazilian consumer protection and data protection laws.
Key data from the leak included information from Mosaic, a consumer segmentation model used by Serasa, the Brazilian subsidiary of international credit reporting company Experian.
Experian released a statement indicating that it is investigating whether the leaked data may have come from its marketing resources. Reportedly, the data breach may also involve the country’s Central Bank, which regulates Experian there; however, the exact source of the exposure is not yet clear, according to Reuters, and Experian maintains that it does not collect or hold much of the exposed data.
The data breach was originally discovered by a cybersecurity firm and, according to reports, may be the country’s most significant on record.
In its notice, the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection pushed for “coordinated action by all competent authorities to ensure efficiency and speed in investigations and in the adoption of measures necessary for consumer safety.” A contingency plan that will help protect Brazilian consumers and minimize harm done by the data breach needs to be developed, the agency said.
Specifically, the notice recommends that each consumer be informed about the information leaked using a website. In addition, the group says that the government should educate citizens about how to identify and protect themselves from scams related to the leaked information. Further, the government should provide a free service that allows citizens to monitor their taxpayer registry identification numbers.
Was your information compromised in the Brazilian data breach? Are you concerned about fraud or identity theft? Tell us what you think in the comment section below!
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