Suspected Cyberattack Sends Fake Emergency Alert to Phones Across Brazil
People in several parts of Brazil woke up on Saturday morning to a strange emergency text message on their mobile phones. The message appeared as an Extreme Alert containing the word “misantropi4,” a Portuguese word meaning hatred toward humanity.
It is suspected that hackers replaced the letter “a” in “misantropia” with the number “4,” creating “misantropi4,” a leetspeak style often used in hacker culture.
This false alarm caused a lot of confusion, mainly because there weren’t any natural disasters or emergencies happening. The message first appeared on phones in the southern state of Paraná. However, within minutes, it reached people in large cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Some residents also received the text via normal SMS messages.
Turning Off the System
In Brazil, a tool called Cellbroadcast is used to send out urgent public warnings. It is managed by the country’s National Telecommunications Agency (known as Anatel...
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