By Mark Tanner
A new lawsuit is claiming that hackers have gained access to the personal information of "billions of individuals," including their Social Security numbers, current and past addresses, and the names of siblings and parents.
It all started with a man named Christopher Hofmann. He claimed that his identity theft protection service alerted him that his personal information had been leaked to the dark web by the "nationalpublicdata.com" breach. The lawsuit was later reported by Bloomberg Law. Although we are just finding out about this now the breach allegedly occurred around April 2024, with a hacker group called USDoD pulling out the personal information of billions of individuals from a company called National Public Data, a background check company. At first, this group was selling the information for 3.5 million U.S. dollars, but soon leaked it for free on a hacker forum.
The hacker claimed the stolen files include 2.7 billion records with each person's date of birth, full name, address, phone number, and most importantly their Social Security number.
"While it unclear how many people that includes, it's likely that everyone with a Social Security number was impacted," Said Cliff Steinhauer, director of information security and engagement at The National Cybersecurity Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes online safety.
"It's a reminder of the importance of protecting yourself because clearly, companies and the government aren't doing it for us," Steinhauer told CBS MoneyWatch.
The company added that it was working with law enforcement and government investigators.
How many people have been impacted?
The number of people impacted is unclear. The lawsuit claims "billions of individuals" had their data stolen, but the total population of the U.S. is 330 million. The lawsuit also says that the data has the information of deceased individuals. Bleeping Computer reports that the hacked data involves 2.7 billion records, with people having more than one record in their database. This means one person could have separate records for each address where they have lived, which means the number of impacted people may be far lower than the lawsuit claims.
Is your data a part of this hack?
There are certain tools that can tell you if your information has been given out or leaked in the dark web, noted Michael Blair, managing director of cybersecurity firm NukuDo.
How do I protect my information?
Experts recommend that consumers put freezes on their credit files. Freezing your credit is completely free and it will stop anyone that is not you from taking out loans or even opening credit cards in your name. NPD also encouraged people to put free fraud alerts on their accounts, which "tells creditors to contact your existing accounts," it said. You could also make sure your passwords are at least 16 characters long and use a password manager to save those passwords in case you forget.
This isn't the first time we have seen these types of hacking before. We all need to help one another and ourselves in protecting our information online. The internet can be home to many viruses that can take your information in a second. If we all take the right precautions in protecting our information we could help lower the amount of hackings from 3,205 in 2023 to possibly just 2,000.
thanl you for enlightening me