Tech Roundup: Data breaches keep piling up

This week: A PIX breach. Consumer protection services worried about banks’ access to customer data. Brazil to have its first solar power plant paid for by crypto. Study uses spatial mapping to link Covid-19 and climate change in São Paulo. 

Massive data breach exposes PIX data of 160,000 people

The Brazilian Central Bank reported on Friday that a data breach within a private payments company has led to the exposure of data from over 160,000 users of PIX, the monetary authority’s instant payments platform launched in October 2020. 

• People’s usernames, taxpayer IDs, and banking information were leaked. Passwords and balances were not exposed, the Central Bank said.
• This is not the first leak involving PIX. In September 2021, data belonging to over 400,000 clients of Banese, a bank in the state of Sergipe, were exposed. The bank claims criminals obtained access by way of phishing attacks.

Why it matters. PIX has quickly evolved into Brazil’s leading method of payment, and has contributed to the digitization of the economy. But trust issues could undermine the system.

By the numbers. Per consultancy Gmattos, the acceptance of PIX as a means of payment for online retailerse skyrocketed. In January 2021, only 16.9 percent of stores accepted it, against 55.9 percent in December.

The big picture. Data breaches continue to pile up in Brazil, and the country doesn’t seem up to the challenge of improving its cybersecurity infrastructure. Just this week, Brasília correspondent Amanda Audi reported that Health Ministry servers were operating close to a collapse, even prior to a December 10 cyberattack which left multiple systems offline.

Partnership could expose bank clients’ data

The Economy Ministry has signed a cooperation agreement to expand integration between financial institutions and government platforms. But consumer protection watchdog Idec says the initiative...