Personal data records of millions of Americans, Canadians, and Britons have reportedly found their way to an online identity theft marketplace. A hacker group called “USDoD” claimed in April that it had obtained 2.9 billion records stolen from National Public Data, a background check firm associated with Jerico Pictures Inc in Coral Springs, Florida. The hackers offered the data for sale at $3.5 million.
In subsequent months, other groups released distinct subsets of the stolen information. However, on August 6th, an individual claiming to have obtained breached National Public Data data via another entity called “SXUL” made available 2.7 billion records in two files totaling 277GB—free of charge.
Each person included in the database is associated with a separate record for each known residential address. However, Bleeping Computer reports that this dataset may be outdated since it does not contain current addresses for any of the people checked, suggesting that the data was taken from an old backup. Nonetheless, “If you live in the US, this data breach has likely leaked some of your personal information.
Cybersecurity firm Pentester has created an online tool to help determine if your personal information is included in the National Public Data breach. By entering your name, state, and birth year, users can verify whether their sensitive details are available to malicious actors delving into the trove.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Jerico Pictures Inc in US District Court in Fort Lauderdale. The 50-page complaint accuses National Public Data of “scraping” the personally identifiable information (PII) of potentially billions of individuals from non-public sources without their consent or knowledge and failing to protect this data from unauthorized access.
According to a statement on National Public Data’s website addressing the massive data theft, “the information that was suspected of being breached contained name, email address, phone number, social security number, and mailing address(es.
Public Information Research Group consumer watchdog director Teresa Murray told the Los Angeles Times, “For somebody who’s really suave at it, the possibilities are really endless.” She warns that identity thieves could combine the National Public Data information with data from previous hacks to “cause all kinds of chaos, commit all kinds of crimes, steal all kinds of money.
As a response to this breach, here are some steps you can take to reduce your risk of being victimized.
While news of the breach is concerning, it has also inspired some humor among those who feel they have little to lose.
