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 not too long ago, USDoD was behind a breach on the client 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 response to TV Globo, USDoD is needed domestically in reference to the theft of knowledge on Brazilian Federal Law enforcement officials.
USDoD was identified to make use of the hacker handles “Equation Corp” and “NetSec,” and in accordance with the cyber intelligence platform Intel 471 NetSec posted a thread on the now-defunct cybercrime group RaidForums on Feb. 22, 2022, through which they provided the e-mail tackle 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 printed a report in August 2024 that named USDoD as 33-year-old Luan BG from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Techmundo mentioned it realized 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 printed a narrative through which USDoD reportedly admitted that CrowdStrike was correct in figuring out him. Hackread mentioned USDoD shared an announcement, 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 non-public information dealer in Florida that collected and bought SSNs and phone information for a big slice of the American inhabitants.
Extra reporting revealed Nationwide Public Knowledge had inadvertently printed its personal passwords on the Web. The corporate is now the goal of a number of class-action lawsuits, and not too long ago declared chapter. In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, USDoD acknowledged stealing the NPD information earlier this 12 months, however claimed he was not concerned in leaking or promoting it.
In December 2022, KrebsOnSecurity broke the information that USDoD had social-engineered his manner into the FBI’s InfraGard program, an FBI initiative designed to construct casual data sharing partnerships with vetted professionals within the non-public sector regarding cyber and bodily threats to crucial U.S. nationwide infrastructure.
USDoD utilized for InfraGard membership utilizing the identification of the CEO of a significant U.S. monetary firm. Although 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 only a few weeks later. After that, USDoD mentioned he used a easy program to gather the entire contact data shared by greater than 80,000 InfraGard members.
The FBI declined to touch upon stories 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 mentioned they had been planning to launch a platform for buying navy intelligence from the US.
Databreaches.internet informed KrebsOnSecurity USDoD has been a daily correspondent since that 2023 interview, and that after being doxed USDoD made inquiries with an area legal professional 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 instances or prices towards him at the moment,” Databreaches.internet mentioned. “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 by way of Telegram on Aug. 15, 2024, they claimed they had been “planning to retire and transfer on from this,” referring to a number of media stories that blamed USDoD for leaking practically three billion client information from Nationwide Public Knowledge.
Lower than 4 days later, nonetheless, USDoD was again on his regular hang-out at BreachForums, posting customized exploit code he claimed to have written to assault not too long ago patched vulnerabilities in a preferred theme made for WordPress web sites.
