Since April, a hacker with a history of selling stolen data has claimed a data breach of billions of records — impacting at least 300 million people — from a U.S. data broker, which would make it one of the largest alleged data breaches of the year.
The data, seen by TechCrunch, on its own appears partly legitimate — if imperfect. The stolen data, which was advertised on a known cybercrime forum, allegedly dates back years and includes U.S. citizens’ full names, their home address history and Social Security numbers — data that is widely available for sale by data brokers.
But confirming the source of the alleged data theft has proven inconclusive; such is the nature of the data broker industry, which gobbles up individuals’ personal data from disparate sources with little to no quality control. The alleged data broker in question, according to the hacker, is National Public Data, which bills itself as “one of the biggest providers of public records on the Internet.”
On its official website,
National Public Data claimed to sell access to several databases: a “People Finder” one where customers can search by Social Security number, name and date of birth, address or telephone number; a database of U.S. consumer data “covering over 250 million individuals;” a database containing voter registration data that contains information on 100 million U.S. citizens; a criminal records one; and several more.
techcrunch.com
