Banking malware in Brazil may be responsible for billions in losses

Tangentially, in the documentary The Fog of War, Robert McNamara describes how accounting at Ford was so messed up that they had to weigh the invoices to estimate expenses. So this got me wondering if crooks don't just mail false invoices to large firms in case some pay without checking.

This has been happening in Brazil for years. They use several methods: boletos for inexistent taxes, internet domain renewals, "social contributions" and others.

They make them look very legit: one we received even mentioned real legislation that said that a certain type of contribution(very similar name to what was on the boleto) was obligatory. We had to take it to our accountant, and he instantly found the fraud.

They also have access to Brazilian whois data somehow. The official whois is protected by captcha, but they're able to obtain the whois database via some other method and then snail-mail boletos to millions of domain owners using their real personal data. It looks very convincing.

The sheer amount of such fake boletos that arrive in the mail every month indicates that this may be a successful scam after all.

That happens a lot after you incorporate a company here. The day after you fill the forms to create a company you start to receive these bills pretending to be something you have to pay. From associations, unions and similars.

The point is that in this particular case it is a "legal scam". There is nothing illegal to pay to your company be part of an association or union. So they send you a "boleto" that looks like something official, and if you don't consult your accountant, you will think you should pay. Even your company's address is open to the public when you incorporate. You pay because at least one of these boletos you actually must pay, it is a municipal fee (an inspection fee, even though the municipality will never actually inspect your office, unles there is some complaint). Also there is some mandatory payment to unions, but only when you hire an employee.

Of course these "associations and unions" don't actually do anything for you. They just exist to get money from entrepreneurs based on all the misinformation and bureaucracy that exists to open a company in Brazil.

I recall that the association / union boleto we received was meant exactly for joining a union of some sort.

And you are absolutely correct: the minute you go formal in Brazil, you become a target for all kinds of scams. I believe all data should be public in a democracy, but they should be public in a way that the person who queries it should identify somehow. That way they would know who downloaded the entire database and would have control of suspicious activity.

Shameless plug: I recently created a boleto management iOS app called Zebra (http://zebrapp.co/) If you're brazilian and are looking for a better way to handle and pay your boletos, I think it can help you.