Unemployment creates a profitable business for Brazilian hackers

Author

Gustavo Ribeiro
May 21, 2019 • Reading Time: 7 minutes

Good morning! Unemployment creates a profitable business for Brazilian hackers. Bolsonaro’s push and pull with Congress. Petrobras equipment sinks in Santa Catarina. Embraer plane certified by EU, U.S. regulators. (This newsletter is for platinum subscribers only. Become one now!)

Unemployment creates a profitable business for Brazilian hackers

A study by Russian cybersecurity

company Kaspersky Lab shows that Brazil is the country with most phishing scams in the world. And most of the scams in the country use false job offers from big companies to bait users into clicking malicious links. A phishing attack is when a hacker poses as a legitimate institution and lures victims into willfully giving sensitive information—such as personal data, passwords, etc.

According to the latest unemployment data, one-quarter of Brazil’s workforce is either unemployed or underemployed—and 5.2m people have been actively looking for a position for more than a year. And many people go their job hunt (the country is LinkedIn’s third-largest market, with over 25m users), making them easy targets for hackers—21% of Brazilian internet users have been victims of phishing attacks.

While many users have grown suspicious of emails from unknown senders, data shows that Brazilians tend to click indiscriminately on links shared through chatting social media channels such as Facebook Messenger of WhatsApp. “Hackers also rely on the fact that many people innocently share these malicious links intending to help people they know who are out of the job market,” says Emilio Simoni, from cybersecurity company PSafe.

Profiting from unemployment

A recent fake job offer for a salesperson at chocolate producer Cacau Show recently scammed over 1m people in just 24 hours.

Bolsonaro’s push and pull with Congress

President Jair Bolsonaro continues sending ambiguous signals towards Congress. Over the past few days, his son Carlos (a city councilor in Rio) has shared social media posts accusing parties of mongering a coup against his father. Yesterday morning, the president himself called politicians “Brazil’s biggest problem.” Later on, however, Mr. Bolsonaro changed his tone, making compliments to Congress—and even to the press.

While the government is having problems gathering a support base in Congress, the president’s existing followers are making a call to arms—and hope to stage protests on May 26 which outnumber those against the Education Ministry’s budget cuts, on May 15. The move appears to have fractured Mr. Bolsonaro’s own party, with several leaders who supported him in the election criticizing the demonstrations—fearing it could further isolate the administration.

In order to make the demos more appealing to moderate conservatives, organizers have toned down their discourse. Initially calling for the shutdown of Congress and the Supreme Court, they say the marches are in defense of the government’s agenda. The president is also sharing digital pamphlets on social media—and is mulling over whether to attend the event in person.”If successful, the upcoming demonstrations will solidify the hegemony of Bolsonarism over the anti-Workers’ Party legacy,” writes philosopher Pablo Ortellado.

Petrobras equipment sinks in Santa Catarina

Brazil’s state-controlled oil and gas company Petrobras has informed that two units of the P-71 overseas oil drilling platform have sunk on Saturday next to the southern state of Santa Catarina, while being transported by a naval towing company. Last week, the company reported problems with another platform, which spilled around 300 liters of oil—and last month, a platform was paralyzed after a 941-liter oil spill.

The P-71 platform is surrounded by controversy. It had been initially ordered to Brazil’s Ecovix group—which was later placed under court-supervised recovery. Then, Chinese contractors picked up part of the order, with Yantai CIMC Raffles being charged with the platform’s equipment. Singapore’s Jurong Aracruz is expected to integrate them into the structure.

When fully operational, P-71 will be able to produce 150,000 oil barrels per day, and will be used in the production of pre-salt deepwater reserve Bacia de Santos.

Embraer plane certified by EU, U.S. regulators

The Praetor 600, Embraer’s new executive jet, has been certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, as well as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration—just a month after Brazilian regulators gave the jet the green light.

The super-midsize jet made its first transatlantic flight over the weekend, using only Sustainable Alternative Jet Fuel. The Brazilian planemaker has celebrated a quick path from launch to certification. “Just over six months since its launch and debut, the Praetor 600 has already been outperforming its certification goals, raising expectations of the ideal super-midsize,” said CEO Michael Amalfitano.

What else you need to know today

  • Guns 1. Brazilian gun manufacturer Taurus has declared President Bolsonaro’s new gun decree allows regular citizens to purchase automatic rifles for military use—and that it would be ready on a moment’s notice to supply them to 2,000 customers on its waiting list. The decree allows weapons with a muzzle energy of up to 1,620 joules—and Taurus says its rifles’ muzzle energy is of 1,320 joules.

  • Guns 2. The government, however, says that rifles are restricted weapons, and therefore wouldn’t be allowed by the new decree. The decree is being contested at the Supreme Court. 

  • GDP. For the 12th straight week, investors lowered their GDP growth forecast for Brazil this year, down to 1.24%, according to the Central Bank’s Focus Report—a weekly survey with top-rated investment firms. In January, the median prediction was at 2.5%. The government is also reportedly ready to lower its own expectations, aligning them with the markets’, at around 1.5%.

  • China. After a U.S. government order, Google has stopped providing non-public hardware or software to Chinese tech giant Huawei—which hampers the company’s ability to create new smartphones and update existing ones. The move worried Brazilian retailers, who have just launched Huawei’s new flagship phone models on Friday—at prices between BRL 2,500 and 5,500. The Chinese company already flopped once in Brazil, and retailers worry that, if other players such as Qualcomm and Intel follow Google’s footsteps, consumers could get scared away.

  • Agribusiness. Affected by a slow economy, Brazilian agribusiness starts 2019 like it ended last year: without many perspectives of growth. Over the year’s first two months, the sector saw its revenue shrink by 0.46% from one year ago—which might jeopardize predictions of a 2% growth over 2019. The biggest culprit is the rise of the prices of inputs. Fertilizers, for instance, are 19% more expensive.

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