SUS Brazil Breach

In mid-September 2024 a dark-web trader posted what it claimed was a full replica of Datasus, the national patient database that underpins Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS). A torrent shared on 18 September advertised 177.9 million rows—effectively every living and deceased Brazilian—with CPF numbers, parents’ names, street addresses, identity-card details, SUS health-card numbers and phone contacts. Sample files matched the schema used by official SUS enrolment systems, but no government agency has yet confirmed the breach or explained how attackers might have copied such a vast trove.

Threat-intel analysts who downloaded small slices say most records were timestamped between 2015 and 2023, suggesting the data was exfiltrated recently rather than pieced together from older leaks. Because CPFs and National Health Card numbers rarely change, the cache provides ideal seed material for identity theft, prescription fraud and large-scale phishing. Within 24 hours of the post, Brazilian Telegram channels were offering CPF look-ups “while servers last,” and criminal forums were bundling the dump into combo lists aimed at banks and fintechs. Cloud-storage links hosting the 90 GB archive were still active a week later despite takedown requests routed through Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD).

Cyber-law specialists note that if the exposure is verified, it would eclipse the country’s 2021 megabreach and mark the first time a complete national health registry has circulated publicly. Under the Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD), Datasus operates as a “controller” of sensitive health data, so an uncontrolled leak could trigger fines of up to 2 percent of the Ministry of Health’s annual budget and force sweeping security reforms across thousands of municipal clinics that sync with the platform. Meanwhile, consumer-rights groups are urging Brazilians to freeze credit, enable multifactor authentication and treat unsolicited calls or WhatsApp messages referencing medical services as potential scams.