SAO PAULO — The Brazilian government believes a hacking attack was responsible for an unauthorized emergency alert that was pushed to cell phones across several parts of the country in the early hours of Saturday morning.
According to a statement from the National Protection and Civil Defense Secretariat, the nation’s citizen notification system was taken offline at approximately 1:30 a.m. local time — 4:30 a.m. GMT — after a message containing the word “misanthropy,” which means hatred of humanity, was delivered to users across multiple states.
Officials said the alert was triggered remotely without authorization. The case has been turned over to Brazil’s Federal Police for a full investigation, and authorities say the notification system will be brought back online as soon as it is safe to do so.
