At least four young children have been killed by a man wielding a hatchet in a Brazil kindergarten attack in the city of Blumenau in southern Brazil, local officials say, BBC reports.
Another four children were injured from the Brazil kindergarten attack by the 25-year-old man who entered the creche at around 09:00 local time (12:00 GMT) on Wednesday, according to BBC.
At least one of them is reportedly in a serious condition.
Police told local media that the attacker had surrendered and was in police custody.
In a statement, military police said that the assailant had handed himself in at one of their stations in the town.
Firefighters said that around 40 children had been inside the Cantinho Bom Pastor nursery – which translates as Good Shepherd – at the time of the Brazil kindergarten attack.
They added that the assailant had jumped over a wall in order to gain entrance to the building and had apparently targeted the victims at random.
Parents ran to the kindergarten as news of the incident spread.
City officials have suspended classes in Blumenau until at least tomorrow.
The governor of Santa Catarina state – where Blumenau is located – has declared three days of mourning.
It is not the first time a kindergarten in the state has been the target of an attack. In 2021, an 18-year-old man killed two staff members and three toddlers in a creche in the municipality of Saudades.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tweeted that “there is no greater pain than that of a family that loses its children or grandchildren, even more so when it’s through an act of violence against innocent children who can’t defend themselves”.
The city has about 360,000 inhabitants and is a popular destination with visitors exploring the German heritage of the region.
“It was a very sophisticated website, very easy to use, with a wiki [website that can be modified or contributed to by users] telling you how to use it, and accessible on the open web and the dark web,” Mr Jones said.
“So you didn’t need to be a sophisticated cyber actor to get into this. You just needed to be able to use a search engine, and then you could start committing crime.”
Depending on how much data was available, a victim’s information would sell for less than $1, or for hundreds of dollars.
While Genesis users were mostly accessing it for fraud, the data on sale could also be used for ransomware attacks – where hackers block access to data and demand payment to release it.
The individual’s data that led to the 2021 hack of gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) sold for just $10.
Businesses also had their information sold on the website, which facilitated fraud, mobile phone number hacking and ransomware attacks.
Will Lyne, head of cyber intelligence at the NCA, said Genesis was “an enormous enabler of fraud” and one of the most significant marketplaces for buying login information.
The NCA believes there were about two million victims worldwide with tens of thousands of them in the UK.
Many victims would first know something was wrong when they saw fraudulent transactions on their account, or if they were lucky, they got a message saying someone had logged in as them.
Tens of thousands of criminals are thought to have been using Genesis, with several hundred users in the UK.
They could search for potential victims by country, and see what data was available before they made their purchase.
Internet users who want to avoid fraud are advised to keep their computer and phone operating systems up-to-date, to use two-factor authentication (2FA) and strong passwords such as ones involving three random words.
They are also being urged to consider using a password manager.