Explaining Brazil #234: A data breach as big as they come

Andrade Gutierrez, a major Brazilian construction conglomerate operating in 11 countries, has suffered a massive data breach. And we have all the details.

Of the 20 biggest economies in the world, Brazil is making some of the slowest and most uneven progress toward creating a solid cyber defense environment. That’s according to findings from the MIT Technology Review’s Cyber Defense Index. Brazil ranks 18th overall. Only Turkey and Indonesia fare worse. 

The country ranked 16th in cybersecurity resources, 17th in critical infrastructure, 18th in organizational capacity, and 19th in policy commitment. And this week, The Brazilian Report revealed an incident that perfectly illustrates such a lack of commitment to data privacy. 

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In this episode:

• Amanda Audi is a journalist specializing in politics and human rights. She is the former executive director of Congresso em Foco and has been with The Brazilian Report since August 2021. Her piece on the rise of the hunger crisis in Brazil was shortlisted for the True Story Award as one of the 94 best articles written in 2022.

Background reading:

• The systems of Andrade Gutierrez, one of Brazil’s leading construction conglomerates, were breached by a group of hackers, exposing reams of sensitive personal data of employees and partnering companies. Read the full report on the data breach, by Amanda Audi (no paywall).
• Data privacy issues plague Brazil. The Brazilian government holds detailed information on recipients of social programs. A lack of data protection safeguards puts these individuals at risk of serious privacy breaches.
• Federal rules on data protection have now been in force for two years. They are beginning to create a culture of privacy protection, but there is still a long way to go.
• Brazil is not at all prepared to defend itself from cybercrime, according to the MIT Technology Review’s Cyber Defense Index.
• Brazil’s Federal Accounts Court recently published a booklet about the high-risk situation that federal public agencies continue to face with regard to cybersecurity.

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• #cybersecurity
• #dataProtection