How to Protect Yourself After the National Public Data Breach
This has been a bad year for personal data. In 2024, there has already been over 1 billion records stolen. The latest breach involved hacking group USDoD, who breached a background check services company, National Public Data – resulting in a data leak of 2.9 billion people. It is alleged the hackers released names, phone numbers, dates of brith, 134 million emails, and 272 million social security numbers on the dark web. According to a statement from the National Public Data, the incident involved a potential hack in December 2023, followed by leaks in April 2024 and this summer. A third-party bad actor hacked into the data and leaked it on the dark web. Much of the personally identifying information had been “scraped” by National Public Data from nonpublic sources– in other words, individuals did not knowingly provide their data to the company. You can get more information about the leak here.
Check to See if Your Information Was Released
Several websites have been setup to allow individuals to check if their SSN or other personal information has been leaked. You can check to see if you were part of the leak at https://npdbreach.com/ or https://npd.pentester.com/. I used both. Both sites showed that my personal information was leaked and the information that was leaked.
National Public Data did not have my newest address, where I currently live – we have been here for about three years. Unfortunately, the company did have my identifying information that included name, all previous addresses, date of birth, and social security number. Try the search for yourself and see what I mean. For example, https://npdbreach.com/ provided the following result when I searched by social security number:
Full records include the following fields: ID,firstname*, lastname*, middlename, name_suff, dob, address*, city, county_name, st, zip, phone1, aka1fullname, aka2fullname, aka3fullname, StartDat, alt1DOB, alt2DOB, alt3DOB, “XXX-XX-XXXX”
This evening I pulled my credit reports from www.annualcreditreport.com. I accessed reports from two of the credit bureaus. I am fortunate, that up to this point, there appears to be no fraudulent transactions. However, this does not mean it will not happen in the future. I will be researching personal identity theft companies, to see if it is worth buying a subscription for their services. I will update you on this.
What To Do
If you look at the history of the major data leaks, it is a no brainer that your information is on the dark web. It may be a matter of time before you are an identity theft victim. Here are some steps you should take to protect yourself:
- Check your credit with the three major credit bureaus. Get your credit reports and look for any loans and/or accounts that are not familiar. If there is a fraud, you will be sure to see it. You can get your free credit reports at www.annualcreditreport.com.
- Place a free fraud alert on your credit – a fraud alert informs creditors to contact you before they open new accounts or make changes to your existing ones. Once a single credit bureau is informed of you credit alert, the other credit bureaus will be alerted to place fraud alerts as well. You can do this online through Equifax, Transunion or Experian. It will require you open an account, but it is straight forward.
- If you still have concerns about what may happen, you can freeze your credit. This article from CNET will help answer your questions about freezing and thawing your credit with the three major credit bureaus. Also, beware, freezing your credit can be inconvenient. You need to contact all three bureaus. You also have to establish accounts with Equifax and TransUnion when you freeze or thaw online, while PINs are required when you unfreeze by phone or postal mail. Meanwhile, Experian requires you to keep track of your PIN to freeze and unfreeze your files regardless of method.
- If you are the victim of fraud, report it to the Federal Trade Commission at https://www.identitytheft.gov/. The FTC provides you with helpful advice on the steps to take once you have discovered fraud. It appears there will be a lot of work to do if you are a victim of fraud and will have to be a very good record keeper.
No Simple Solution
It is likely your personal information has been stolen and leaked on the dark web. Hopefully, you are lucky enough never to be a victim of identity fraud. There may be no way to avoid it, but you can take steps to mitigate how bad it will be.
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