Meet the Pezão Trojan: Brazil’s Got Malware

Brazil loses well over $8 billion a year to Internet crime, which happens to be the No. 1 economic crime in the country. For some perspective on that statistic, cybercrime is ranked fourth in rest of the world. With about 54 percent of Brazil’s 200 million citizens already using the Internet, there are lots of potential victims to go around, turning cybercrime into lucrative business. It’s not surprising then that Brazil is the second-largest cybercrime generator in the world, ranking No. 1 in Latin America and the Caribbean as both a source and target of online attacks. With new variations of malware emerging more often than any other region, Brazil’s got malware!

The Pezão Malware: Unique for Brazil

Brazilian malware is the malice of choice in 68 percent of all cyberattacks in the country. Local malicious code is known for a number of typical traits, but most of all for being programmed in Delphi — a rather simplistic approach to create rather simplistic Trojans. Because of that, Brazil has hardly any defined malware families, in the classic sense, with each iteration but a minor customization of something that was used many times before.

Continue reading here