A recent breach involving nearly 3 billion personal records included many Social Security numbers. Was yours one of them? Here’s how to check and what to do to protect yourself.
This article was first published on August 14, 2014. It was updated on August 18, 2014 to include information about Pentester’s new tool.
You’ve likely never heard of National Public Data, the company that makes its money by collecting and selling access to your personal data to credit card companies, employers, and private investigators. It now appears that the hacker group USDoD snatched about 2.9 billion of its records. Odds are that your records — including, possibly, your Social Security number are in those databases.
How bad is it really? According to the security organization Vx-Underground, the stolen data includes
Vx-Underground also found that “the database does not contain information from individuals who use data opt-out services.” These are sites or services that allow you to say no to a company or group that wishes to keep your records.
That’s good to know, but for many of you, it’s probably a little late.
The leaked data, totaling 277GB, can be used for identity theft and fraud. Although the breach does not necessarily affect 2.9 billion unique individuals (due to multiple records per person), it still poses a significant risk. The information can be used to open fraudulent accounts, apply for loans, or even commit tax fraud.
There’s a site that can tell you if your SSN was leaked from the personal security company Pentester.
