Fabio Assolini of Kaspersky writes:
What happens when all of your personal data is readily available for use by a cybercriminal?
Last November we published a blog talking about Brazilian phishing attacks that displayed the victims’ CPF numbers – the Natural Persons Register, the equivalent of a Social Security Number used by the Brazilian government to identify each citizen. A CPF is the most important document a Brazilian citizen possesses. It’s a prerequisite for a series of tasks like opening bank accounts, getting or renewing a driver’s license, buying or selling real estate, receiving loans, applying for jobs (especially public ones), getting a passport or credit cards, etc.
But this incident was just the tip of the iceberg.
Due to our constant monitoring of malicious activities, we found some bad guys offering access to a complete database of all Brazilian citizens that have a CPF – all you need to do is contact a number and the system will bring you the complete personal data of a potential victim.
Read more on SecureList.
Great thanks to @TomEtty for alerting me to this.