Brazilian Federal Police have arrested the infamous hacker USDoD, the same threat actor linked to public national data breaches.
Yesterday (October 16), Brazil’s Polícia Federal (PF) announced the arrest of Luan BG, better known online as USDoD, after being suspected of breaching PF systems.
“The Federal Police launched Operation Data Breach on Wednesday (10/16), with the aim of investigating invasions of Federal Police systems and other international institutions,” said the PF.
“A search and seizure warrant and a preventive arrest warrant were served in the city of Belo Horizonte/MG against an investigated person suspected of being responsible for two publications selling Federal Police data, on May 22, 2020 and February 22, 2022.”
The threat actor, also known as EquationCorp, has been involved in a number of high-profile data breaches, including Airbus, a 70 million record-strong US criminal database, and most recently, on the American background checking company National Public Data. , which recently filed for bankruptcy.
However, it was the Defense Department’s claim that it breached US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that landed it in deep water.
In July, the threat actor bragged about leaking CrowdStrike’s “complete list of threat actors” on the popular threat forum BreachForums, with a link to the alleged list. However, no violations ever occurred.
“There is no violation of CrowdStrike,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson told Cyber Daily.
“This threat data is available to tens of thousands of customers, partners and prospects. »
Following the alleged violation, a Brazilian publication TecMundo received an anonymous report revealing the USDoD’s identity as 33-year-old Brazilian Luan BG.
Talk with HackReadthe USDoD confirmed that the information leaked about him was real and that he was in fact Luan BG and that he lived in Brazil.
“So congrats to Crowdstrike for doxxing me, they’re late to the party, Intel421 Plus and a few other companies have already doxxed me…” he told HackRead.
Probably with the help of this information, the PF stopped the USDoD.
“The prisoner boasted of being responsible for several cyber invasions carried out in certain countries, claiming, on websites, to have disclosed the sensitive data of 80,000 members of InfraGard, a partnership between the Federal Bureau Investigation – FBI and private critical infrastructure entities in the United States. United States of America,” the PF said.
“The investigation will continue to identify any other cyber intrusions committed by the person under investigation.”
Discussion about the USDoD arrest began on BreachForums, with other users shocked by the incident.
One user said he spoke to Luan BG the morning of his arrest and that despite confirming his identity to the media, the arrest took him by surprise.
“He contacted me this morning and I can tell you he had no idea this was a possibility at this point, based on what the Feds told his lawyer a few months ago.” , said BreachForums user DissentDoe. .
UPDATED 10/17/24 to add additional comments on CrowdStrike
