Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

TECHNOLOGY-BRAZIL: Cybercrime Capital of the World?

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 1 2005 (IPS) - Criminals to some, innovators to others, computer “hackers” are a fact of life in the globalised world of information technology – and a surprisingly large number of them are based in Brazil.

South Korea recently informed the Brazilian authorities that over 5,000 websites in the Asian nation had been invaded by individuals operating out of Brazil.

The term “hacker” is commonly used to refer to people who use their programming skills to gain illegal access to computer systems for the purpose of stealing or modifying data.

By definition, however, hackers are simply computer enthusiasts, often untrained amateurs, and those guilty of such misdeeds are more correctly described as “crackers”.

In any event, the onslaught of digital attacks from people based in South America’s largest nation led the South Korean authorities to request Brazil’s cooperation in curbing this illegal activity, Brazilian Federal Police computer expert Paulo Quintiliano told IPS.

Zone-H.org, a website that records hacking or “defacement” incidents, reported that the Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures’ website for the Steven Spielberg movie “War of the Worlds” had been invaded on Feb. 13 by a Brazilian hacker nicknamed “Un-root”.

Until the following day, instead of a trailer for the science fiction film based on the H.G. Wells novel, visitors to the website found a message in Portuguese advocating “a better world”, described as “a capitalist society with socialist influences.”

In January, another Brazilian, Marcos Velasco, enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame as the subject of an article in The New York Times. Velasco developed a cell phone virus – which he named after himself – and then published the virus codes on his own website.

Velasco defended his actions by stating on his website that his goal was simply “to share knowledge,” so that people can learn more about viruses and how to defend themselves. He added that his virus was in no way harmful, “it merely spreads.”

The 32-year-old software developer also published the codes for eliminating the virus, which was strictly aimed at “demonstrating a technique,” since knowledge is meant to be shared, he added.

As a result, Velasco is clearly a “hacker” in the true sense of the word, in that there was no harmful intent behind his actions.

The difference between hackers and crackers was discussed by Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, a well-known analyst of the social impact of the “worldwide web” or Internet, at the World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre in southern Brazil during the last week of January.

Castells pointed out that hackers are generally “peaceful” individuals, who promote technological innovations, although the media generally uses the term to refer to “crackers”, aggressive invaders who purposefully cause damage or use their skills for personal profit, by gaining access to credit card numbers or bank accounts, for example.

The Brazilian “hacker” Un-root, for instance, is actually a group of “average high school students” between the ages of 15 and 19 – according to their own self-description – who do not view themselves as hackers or “defacers”, since their only goal is to “protest social injustice.”

The identity of Un-root was revealed in an e-mail interview given by one of the group’s members to the Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo, and published on Feb. 17. The Un-root spokesperson reported that the group had invaded 13,500 websites in the last six months, adding, “That’s not very many.”

But according to Quintiliano, authorities in Brazil do not recognise these terminological distinctions. “It’s all computer crime,” he said, which is spreading like a plague in Brazil. The Federal Police, an agency of the Ministry of Justice, created a specialised group of computer experts in 1995 to combat this illicit activity.

Quintiliano was a member of the original group of 10 experts, which has now grown to 42 and will have tripled by the end of this year, reflecting the urgent need to confront the rapid growth of this new form of crime.

Last October, the Federal Police arrested 53 people in a single day, all of them members of a ring that diverted money from bank accounts through the Internet. The ring operated out of a number of states in northern and northeastern Brazil, in some cases from small isolated towns.

Two smaller rings that also specialised in bank fraud were dismantled in February in Brasilia, the nation’s capital, and the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Despite the increased efforts, and successes, of the Brazilian police, computer crime still provokes greater losses today for the country’s banks than traditional armed robbery, according to statistics from the Brazilian Banking Federation.

This new reality was highlighted at the first International Conference to Combat Computer Crime, organised by the Federal Police in Brasilia last September. The meeting was attended by some 500 participants, with 60 speakers from 21 countries.

Quintiliano coordinated the conference, where it was revealed that of the 10 biggest organised “cybercrime” rings operating in the world, eight are Brazilian. Another meeting is being planned for 2006.

The expert attributed Brazil’s prominent role to a greater degree of organisation among hackers and crackers, and perhaps considerable amounts of “creativity and spare time.” Federal Police statistics demonstrate that the growth in computer crime has mirrored the expansion of Internet use by individuals, companies and banks.

These criminal rings are not made up solely of young computer “geeks”, as per the stereotypical portrayal of hackers, Quintiliano noted. There are also many adults involved, and some of them are bank employees who take advantage of the information at their fingertips. “They don’t know a lot about computers, they just use the codes available to them through the Internet.”

The greatest obstacle to fighting this new type of crime is the fact that it transcends national borders, leading to the need for support from other countries, he stressed. As a result, a worldwide network for cooperation in combating cybercrime is being developed and expanded, allowing for direct communication among national police agencies.

The situation has led to the proliferation of companies and groups devoted to Internet security. One of Brazil’s largest, NIC BR Security Office (NBSO), recorded an overwhelming increase in “incidents” – ranging from viruses to invasions to fraud – in the last few years, with 5,997 cases in 2000, 25,092 in 2002 and 75,722 last year.

SecureSynergy of India alleged back in November 2002 that “Brazil is now both a laboratory for cybercrime and also its largest exporter worldwide,” as well as the second-biggest victim of digital attacks, after the United States.

At the time, the worldwide economic damage from overt and covert digital attacks, including viruses and worms, was estimated to be between 37 and 45 billion dollars.