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 shopper information dealer Nationwide Public Information 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 knowledge on Brazilian Federal Cops.
USDoD was recognized 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 community RaidForums on Feb. 22, 2022, during which they supplied the e-mail handle and password for 659 members of the Brazilian Federal Police.
TV Globo didn’t title 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 realized the hacker’s actual id after being given a draft of an in depth, private report produced by the safety agency CrowdStrike.
CrowdStrike didn’t reply to a request for remark. However every week after Techmundo’s piece, the tech information publication hackread.com published a story during 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 current assertion by USDoD, after he was efficiently doxed by CrowdStrike and different safety companies. Picture: Hackread.com.
In August 2024, a cybercriminal started selling Social Security numbers and other personal information stolen from Nationwide Public Information, a non-public information dealer in Florida that collected and offered SSNs and make contact with information for a major slice of the American inhabitants.
Further reporting revealed Nationwide Public Information had inadvertently published its own passwords on the Web. The corporate is now the goal of a number of class-action lawsuits, and recently declared bankruptcy. 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 way 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 id 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 only a few weeks later. After that, USDoD stated 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.web, USDoD instructed 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 tip of that interview, USDoD stated they have been planning to launch a platform for buying army intelligence from the US.
Databreaches.web instructed KrebsOnSecurity USDoD has been a daily 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.web 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 by way of Telegram on Aug. 15, 2024, they claimed they have been “planning to retire and transfer on from this,” referring to a number of media stories that blamed USDoD for leaking almost three billion shopper data from Nationwide Public Information.
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 not too long ago patched vulnerabilities in a well-liked theme made for WordPress web sites.
