Tomás Pedroso or “Zambrius”, the 22-year-old Portuguese hacker responsible for several computer attacks, has been accused by the Brazilian Ministry of Public Elections (MPE) of hacking into Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) system during the 2020 municipal elections. According to CNN Portugalare accused, along with three other computer hackers of Brazilian nationality, of invading computers, violating the electoral law and stealing data from the electoral system, as well as criminal association.
The MPE’s accusation reveals that the group of hackers, in addition to accessing the system and stealing data, published this information on the Internet. A month later, two of the pirates prevented voters from proving their identity with their mobile phone in the e-Título application, which gives voters access to election information.
He was found guilty but is awaiting appeal. He is free and, with access to the Internet, he claims attacks. Zambrius says he hacks for “taste”
The MPE believes that the authorship of the attacks is the Cybterteam group, led by the Portuguese, and Noias do Amazonas. The two groups are said to have collaborated with each other and are accused of promoting “disruption harmful to electoral work” and of interfering “with the proper provision of relevant services to voters”. The attack was carried out by Tomás Pedroso when he was 19 years old, and he was under house arrest, with only his mobile phone.
As the Observer wrote, when asked by the Brazilian newspaper Estadão about the reasons that led him to attack the High Electoral Court, the young man said that his “main objective was to demonstrate that the TSE remains vulnerable even after” the announcement of a security. reinforcement. And he refused any association with supporters of Bolsonaro, then president of Brazil: “I am not involved in political acts, I am only involved in protests against the government, I have never had parties, governments or anything to do with the government related, not supported. “
To CNN Portugal, in a written answer, he now adds that he did not “manipulate any information, despite having access to computers and databases of the multinational Oracle, responsible for election processing”. The young man was captured again in November 2020 by the Judicial Police in a joint operation with the Brazilian authorities.
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He is currently out on bail pending appeal of a six-year prison sentence. In January 2022, he was found guilty of 28 crimes of aggravated illegal access, misuse of data and computer damage, carried out within a period of ten months. He is obliged to report to the authorities twice a week and cannot leave the country. In the midst of all this, it continues to claim attacks.
Several entities were targeted in the “Zambrius” attacks. For example, he gained access to Benfica’s systems, having even provided credentials of 114 employees of the club, and of Altice, from which he obtained confidential data, in 2020. He is also responsible for a cyber attack that affected the Global Media Group, which owns TSF. or Diário de Notícias, and attacks on three branches of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Among others.
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Tomás Pedroso founded the Cyberteam, a group of hacktivists who “dedicate themselves to the practice of activities related to the exploitation of vulnerabilities on websites, public and private Portuguese entities” and foreign “without any authorization of their owners”, according to ‘ a decision of the Judicial Court of the District of Lisbon, as the Observer explained in detail.