Hackers may have stolen the Social Security numbers of all Americans. Here's what to know.
A new lawsuit is claiming 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 — personal data that could allow fraudsters to infiltrate financial accounts or take out loans in their names.
The allegation arose in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Christopher Hofmann, a California resident who claims 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 earlier reported by Bloomberg Law.
The breach allegedly occurred around April 2024, with a hacker group called USDoD exfiltrating the unencrypted personal information of billions of individuals from a company called National Public Data (NPD), a background check company, according to the lawsuit. Earlier this month, a hacker leaked a version of the stolen NPD data for free on a hacking forum, tech site Bleeping Computer reported.
Maybe it's time to move on from using SSNs for security? We have someting similar in Sweden - "person numbers". If I call the tax authority and ask for someone's "person number" they will tell me. They're not secret in any way, and thus not used as some form of authentication either.
The old social security cards had "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" printed on them for a reason.
This. It is so shocking that they just get used as a harder ID than actual ID. Someone didn't get the memo. And by "someone", I mean corporations who haven't had real consequences in 50 years.
They were never actually meant for identification, just got pigeonholed into that role because the government couldn't get support for a national citizen ID or the equivalent. We absolutely need something, but every republican will scream that, "it's a way for the government to track us and limit out freedoms!" and it will be shot down.
The peak of irony considering the porn age ID verification laws and abortion bans they impose on people living in the states they control.
Because they never cared about government overreach. It was always a lie to appeal to gullible rubes.
But how exactly does it work when applying for something like a credit card or going to a doctors office and filling out a form? Because here in the US those ask for SSN
They ask for SSN because there is no other form of national ID in the US (by design). SSNs were not introduced with this use in mind in fact they were explicitly meant to not be used this way, but society has slowly twisted it into a de facto national ID.
what was meant to be used then?
To track contributions and withdrawals to the social security system. Pretty much everyone in enrolled, so pretty much everyone has an SSN.
Americans explicitly didn't want a national ID.
We really are kinda fuckin dumb in the US. It's like we're equally deeply suspicious of our government but too dumb to understand how it works so we ends up with blind, ignorant cynicism
And yet we have multiple of them now. Drivers license, SSN, and if you/your parent are/were military, EDIPI/DoDID.
Military, sure, but driver's licenses are state-level, not federal. Health care has been using birthdate like a password (one that is largely publicly available) for way too long now. At least financial institutions can use account numbers and financial history and code words, but even all that isn't great.
It's a messy patchwork, but I think at the time of the creation of the SSA, the US may have still thought of itself as a land of second chances. IBM numbering Holocaust victims probably didn't help the idea of a national ID, nor did the victim narrative of groups like the NRA.
I'm not sure if it's possible not to have a national ID anymore, so denial of it just forces a terribly kludgy implementation from whatever is around.
Are they though, with RealID requirements for new licenses now?
RealID is option there's no Federal mandate for it.
Sure. As long as you don't need to
Then it's optional. Non-RealID isn't offered anymore in Ohio as far as I'm aware, I'd imagine other states are the same.
My state still offers non-RealID compliant licenses. And the down side isn't all federal buildings only certain ones plus domestic flights. But a passport will also work for those if you don't have one.
https://www.dhs.gov/real-id/real-id-faqs
Hmm, that's a good point. Washington finally relented, they were a hold-out for a long time.
Yes
My number did not change after Real ID. I guess it could work if you added the state postal code to it.
I think there should be an amendment allowing the creation of a Unique Population Registry Key that uses numeric and alphabetic characters.
Everyone should also get a procedurally-generated theme song.
I'm cool with this as long as I can reserve Thunderstruck by AC/DC.
Nordics have resolved this by having the strong digital authentication. Services like banks and tele operators work as identity providers for individuals/companies.either through mobile network or app on your phone, and these is a central service that links these together.
This way third parties can safely identify you, and also it follows same OpenID/OAuth2.0/MFA principles, which are industry standards.
Having experienced both systems the Nordic ones are well thought out, streamlined and feel extremely secure.
The US system feels so absurdly predatory and intentionally insecure. It's often slower, non-standardized, and glitchy(e.g. student loan stuff).
In general, fraud is much easier in the US which is is by design as stated elsewhere in the thread.
Doctor's office and credit card companies don't need your ssn. It is one of the easiest places to steal them from.
https://clark.com/show-notes/10-worst-places-give-your-social-security-number/
You don't have to give anyone your SSN, especially for medical. There are ways to bill without SSN.
It's a massive pain in the ass, but every American should freeze their credit with the 3 agencies. Their websites are shit, they will sign you up for credit card ads no matter what you click, and every bit of the process will make you seethe with rage at how fucked and incompetent the whole system is. But go do it anyway.
I did it last year after the state DMV was hacked and lost every personal detail for basically everyone in the state who drives. It was real nice not having a loan taken out in my name a few months later when Experien called me out of the blue to ask if I really wanted to unfreeze.
I also did have to legit take out a loan later and it was easy. Just call one of the agencies and do a temporary unfreeze for 24 hours. Amazingly, they let you unfreeze to take out more loans very simply. Wonder why it's so hard to freeze in the first place? Almost like they don't give a shit who's creating the debts as long as some poor somewhere can be held to account for it.
And the "Experian Alerts - Your Monthly Account Statement is here!" e-mails that you can't disable, because they, and others, figured out how to get around the CAN-SPAM act by claiming the spam is "alerts related to your account" and not just advertising covered in pig lipstick.
Places to remove yourself from, including the big three:
And Innovis
It’s so incompetent because they are federally required to offer the freeze service for free. They all also offer a paid subscription freezing service that’s much more convenient, and they are trying to frustrate you into paying for what they are required to offer for free.
It's like the coin-operated tire pumps at convenience stores that have a switch on the back that will turn them on for nothing - since in many states tire pumps are required to be offered free of charge.
Holy shit I didn’t know that
I just asked ChatGPT. It said only California and Connecticut.
But some local governments too.
Found the CT resident
100% this.
Freeze credit on the big 3 websites. I unfreeze when needed like when I financed my car, then lock them up again.
It is a pain, and be sure not to lose the passwords. Turn on MFA where ever possible. Do not use correct answers for secret questions, use made up answers and keep track with a pw manager.
Check your credit every year for mistakes or oddities.
If you live in California, contact data brokers like Lexus Nexus or Red Violet and have them delete your profile.
God I hate modern society.
What's to stop someone from in unfreezing your credit if they literally know everything about you and have all the info at their fingertips
It's like running away from a bear... you don't have to outrun the bear, just the other people running from the bear. If someone wants your identity, they're probably gonna get it if they're determined enough. The way these hacks usually work, though, is you just buy a chunk of the data, maybe 10k records. Then, they use automated tools to try and open accounts under those ID records. If it fails, no biggie, they just move on to the next record.
There's no such thing as perfect security of course, but in this case it's because having my phone number and address isn't the same as having my phone. So short of a SIM clone or something like that, the MFA on those accounts still adds one layer of protection. There's also "security" questions and, protip, the answer to what high school I went to is not which high school I went to. It's just another, different pass phrase.
I'm just not worth the trouble to beat all the extra layers of security when there's millions of people who's money is far easier to get at.
The pyramid of pain.
Make it hair pullingly difficult to find the good stuff.
You want my name? Fine.
My number? Here's my google voice digits.
My email? I've got dozens.
My home address? I'm gonna need something from you.
The above leaked current and previous addresses tho
They have to know to unfreeze. It's an extra step, and unless you're a particularly juicy target, it's easier to move onto the next one.
/guess
Unfreeze also generally requires a PIN or tied to a login/accessible email. So not only would they need your info, they’d also need your credentials.
Defense in depth. More layers = more hurdles = deterrence.
Does anybody know the process to unfreeze? I froze mine years and years ago but I don't recall setting a pin or even remember what it was if I did. It's going to be a huge PITA next time I need a loan for something. I've nearly almost signed up for a new credit card before remembering that I froze all my accounts and abandoning the process because if the aforementioned PITA.
They may have sent you an email with the PIN but if you weren't paying close attention you could have missed it. If you save your emails it may be worth doing a search.
All the more reason to do it yourself, they all mostly require accounts with 2FA now. Until you set that up, a bad actor could. Once set up, they would have to compromise your second factor as well.
It's considerably easier using the websites vs. their apps. Don't forget to enable 2FA!
It’s not that big of a pain. It took me just a few minutes to make the accounts and then freeze everything. I already get credit card ads in the mail, so what else is new, and everything in my email goes to the spam folder.
I’ve had three security breaches in the last year or so. I think of you have any sort of accounts anywhere at this point part, or all, of your identity is out there.
Is there no chance if this gets bad enough it could kill credit scores as a thing?
Absolutely none.
Throw it on the pile of data breaches affecting me (and most Americans).
I don't know why I even bother lowering my voice when I have to give my SSN to someone. You could probably just google it anyway.
How often do you have to give it out loud. Not American but I basically never have to utter our equivalent.
I had to give it out loud to get a one day fishing license in the state of Ohio. After filling out a ton of info including my ssn on the Ohio dept of natural resources website, I found out the website credit card processor wasn’t working. I went to a local bait shop and had to give my SSN out loud to get a license.
I was like well, I guess I’ll blindly trust this stranger not to fuck over my life now that he has my secret number. The United States habit of basing your identity off your SSN is so incredibly stupid.
Depends what service you're interacting with. Typically it's government services that need it, but sometimes banks or other financial outlets.
Right, but how often do you have to give it out loud? I'm Canadian, and I don't think I've ever said my SIN out loud in person. It's either on paperwork, or over the phone.
I consider over the phone as out loud (can't always have the room to myself since I'm never home when gov services are open).
In person, it's sometimes needed for verification, though usually just the last 4 digits. Other times they'll need the full social to look you up. Definitely varies by region in the US when you're dealing with local government (vs federal), and it's less common to have to give it out than it was in the past, but it's still fairly common and not surprising to be asked for it.
By "over the phone", I'm imagining dialing the digits rather than speaking them.
Nope. Spoken to a person.
I was referring to what n2burns said
Its pretty rare; usually only the last 4 digits as a step in verification on some occasions.
A few times, only when dealing with student loan servicers, banks, and my credit card company
Where’s my check
Lol, right. The best the inevitable class-action will get you is a coupon for 10% off one year of credit monitoring.
With purchase of eligible credit monitoring plan.
...from one of our partner affiliated monitoring companies.
The recommendation in the article was to freeze my credit reports. Fucking awesome. Equifax locked me out for 24 hours trying to access my account and Experian won't even let me access my account because their website is apparently unable to text me a four-digit code. Now I have to call and deal with customer service for both of them. At least TransUnion let me do it almost immediately.
Having to deal with this inevitable shitshow is the only reason I haven't done this yet. Every interaction I've ever had with these two companies has been a dumpster fire.
It was easy for me. I was able to do all three online with no issues. Just offering some anecdotal evidence to offset one other persons story.
Trying now. So far,
Equifax website logged in fine but I got sidetracked by something else so it timed me out. Try to login again and it gives me a blank page. Disabled ad blockers, cleared cookies, closed browser etc.. Same thing.
Experian website says my email doesn't exist (an email I previously setup specifically for Experian). Ok submit lost password form using phone number and social.. It says to enter the code texted to the same number which they're showing as existing.. Never get the code. Resent code. Never get the code. Click "sign in another way", taken back to original login page.
TransUnion absolutely flawless.
Now I have to go slide my cock back into the blender which is Equifax and Experian in hopes I can access my own information before a hacker does. I'd say it's 50:50 odds on that.
Edit:
Tried Experian "forgot username" option. It asks for date of birth and full social. Says the shit doesn't match! How in the actual fuck?
I had some issues too. One was my overly locked-down FF browser. Once I switched over to my more relaxed FF DE it worked better. Had to attempt the text code a couple of times on Experian for it to eventually work. All three locked now and the frustrations were mostly minor.
The biggest frustration was that I had to do all of this in the first place. Now I am compelled to maintain accounts with these damn credit bureaus too. I just love modern conveniences.
Also, there is a fourth credit "bureau" called Innovis. I did nothing with them. Should I? Checking account creation via banks also use ChexSystems. Theoretically, a checking account could be opened in your name. I did nothing with them, either. Not sure if I need to.
I froze my credit once and I’ll never do it again. Almost stopped the purchase of my house because it took so long to unfreeze. Screw that.
But if you don't, someone could use your now stolen SSN to do things like take out loans in your name. I don't think it would be too hard to unfreeze it before you started house shopping.
You don’t think but I know.
You said you were about to buy it. I'm saying before you even start looking for a house.
That’s fair, but I forgot since it was frozen for years. Doesn’t really matter. The point is that it takes a lot longer than people think.
In the sense of "Simpsons did it!":
Equifax did it first.
Sure wish the massive corporate incompetence and malfeasance causing huge data leaks multiple times over the years would get mentioned every time one of these stories comes up.
Hackers did blah, this WOULD ALMOST matter, but!
We need to start redirecting some of those board bonuses and CEO dollars back into infrastructure to actually secure this shit as a required responsibility and stop places from being allowed to request personal information they shouldn't have.
These companies should be paying fines in the BILLIONS of dollars for their malfeasance. I got a notice from work this morning, this is horrifying.
The past addresses thing is kind of spooky. I once got a bequest of stock options from the company I worked for and they were claimable online. One of the ways in which they verified my identity was to have me pick out actual addresses I'd lived at in the past (one of them more than 15 years prior) from a list containing other addresses. Somebody with access to a list of my past addresses might have been able to claim my fifty grand worth of options before I did.
Why would you need to claim them to begin with? My company just adds them to my stock account via payroll.
I had no stock account at this point, at least none involving my company since my company did not have stock before this. What had happened was my non-stock company was purchased by a larger stock company and I was granted a bequest of the new company's stock.
I would imagine that, if they go unclaimed for x amount of time, the company gets to reclaim them
Uh, I got bad news. If I search for my name, there are freely and publicly available online directories that show all my past addresses (and phone numbers) going back over 20 years. That's why I had to pay a service that searches for this crap and submits requests on my behalf to have them take it down. I think California's law where you can also ask once to be removed from all of them will go into effect soon?
Not for me! I got laid off by this company so no more stock options, ever. Yay!
Ah, ok. It's still very concerning that anyone bases identity-verification on very publicly available data.
I hate those verifications. I view it like drm in software - it's more of a hindrence for the user than it is for the bad actor.
Social Security Numbers are such a weird thing. Over here we've got an official rijksregisternummer that you get assigned at birth by the state and can be used to identify you. For some reason the USA decided that something like this is against their Freedoms ©®™, but when an agency gave people numbers for something completely different, that was never build to identify everyone in the country, everyone decided this is great to identify everyone in the country, so now everyone uses this system for something it was never built for.
The social security agency is the same thing here. SSN is the same as your rijksregisternummer but don't take my word for it.
https://www.ssa.gov/history/orghist.html
It's literally an identification number assigned at by the federal government to identify you - usually you get them at birth but not always. Depends on your parents I suppose.
https://www.ssa.gov/agency/pillars/support.html
All your shit was already out there. Might as well fuck up your credit before somebody else does.
Jokes on them! They probably already had mine from the Move-It hack.
Checkmate hackers.
Great editing once again brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department!
Good luck with my credit score, hackers.
If this is Wells Fargo making more fake credit cards and charging them in their clients names I’m going to be hangry
Can we just pass a law or act that allows a person to discharge any debt they deem fraudulent? Like if it is known the person had their data leaked and they are signed up for something sketchy we should be able to legally and for free dispute that account/charge/service and have it stricken from our life. To prevent someone from just taking advantage of it though it should also automatically change your SSN or other personal ID number and freeze other accounts that are legit until they are paid in full. Most people would need to use this service at most once in their lifetime.
This is already the case, it’s not a law, but contracts. You’re not in fact a party to the agreement, so you’re not beholden to the terms.
We already have that, it's called debt verification. If they can't prove the debt is really yours, you're off the hook.
Looks like I’m not alone this year.
Hey, good thing I already got my personal information stolen from my doctor’s office or something so I already have a year’s free credit monitoring with alerts etc. 🙂↕️
Why have this insecure system if security is right in the name! /j
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