Brazil’s central bank is moving ahead with a crypto threat alert system designed to help banks and domestic exchanges respond to cyberattacks in which digital assets are used to move stolen funds out of the traditional financial system.
The tool was developed with Hypernative and has already been tested with unnamed market participants, according to the source report. Regina Pedroso, executive director of the Brazilian Tokenization Association, said integration is expected to begin within the next two weeks.
System targets crypto-linked attack flows
The planned system would notify a joint network of banking institutions and crypto platforms about threats involving digital assets. Its stated purpose is to help participants identify, process, respond to and mitigate attacks that use cryptocurrency as an exit rail.
The effort comes as crypto use has grown in Brazil and, alongside that growth, criminals have increasingly used the sector for illicit activity. The new alert structure is meant to improve coordination between financial institutions and exchanges when suspicious movements linked to cyber incidents emerge.
Built after cyberattack working group
Discussion around the tool intensified last year after Brazil’s central bank created a working group focused on cyberattacks. According to Pedroso, one of the main concerns in these cases is preserving traceability when money leaves conventional finance channels and enters the crypto market.
She said the system has already been developed and that some alert bulletins have already been issued during testing. The next stage, she said, is getting associations and participating entities ready to receive and redistribute those alerts.
2025 breach highlighted the gap
The background to the initiative includes a major incident in July 2025, when cybercriminals exploited a vulnerability in software provided by middleware company C&M. The attack siphoned $180 million from the financial system, and part of the proceeds were reportedly cashed out through exchanges using bitcoin and USDT.
At the time, Smartpay CEO Rocelo Lopes criticized what he described as a lack of guardrails to limit the damage from the exploit. That episode underscored the difficulty of tracking and interrupting stolen funds once they move from banking infrastructure into crypto rails.
Initial rollout to include local exchanges
Pedroso said implementation is now the main challenge. In her description, the central bank has already tested the system, and the focus has shifted to operational integration across the organizations that will handle the alerts.
Foxbit and Mercado Bitcoin are expected to be among the Brazilian crypto companies participating in the rollout. Based on Pedroso’s timeline, integration work is set to start within two weeks, marking the next confirmed step in bringing the alert network into use.
Source: news.bitcoin.com