(WJET/WFXP) The personal data of over 2.9 billion people has been exposed in what could be one of the largest data breaches in history.
The data breach affected Jerico Pictures Inc., better known as National Public Data (NPD,) which is a background check company that allows its customers to search billions of records with instant results.
According to a lawsuit against the company, the data breach exposed sensitive information which includes, but is not limited to: full names; current and past addresses (dating back at least three decades); Social Security numbers; family information of parents, siblings and other relatives (including some who have been deceased for over 20 years); and/or other personal information.
The lawsuit was filed after the plaintiff, Christopher Hofmann, said he received a notification from his identity theft protection service provider on July 24 notifying him that his data was exposed in a breach and leaked on the dark web.
The lawsuit goes on to say that no information was knowingly provided to NPD, rather it was scraped from non-public sources without the knowledge or consent of the person. As such, NPD would have subsequently assumed the duties to properly protect and safeguard the information from unauthorized access and intrusion. However, as the lawsuit alleges, these protections and safeguards did not happen leading to the massive data breach.
At this time, there has been no official notification by NPD regarding the exact details of the breach. Individuals whose data has been accessed and exposed have also not been notified. However, what is known is that a cybercriminal group under the name of USDoD gained access to NPD’s network on April 8, 2024, and was subsequently able to extract the unencrypted personal information of billions of individuals.
That information was later published, offered for sale, and sold on the dark web. The court documents reference VX-Underground which is said to be an educational website about malware and cybersecurity reported that:
April 8th, 2024, a Threat Actor operating under the moniker “USDoD” placed a large database up for sale on Breached titled: “National Public Data”. They claimed it contained 2,900,000,000 records on United States citizens. They put the data up for sale for $3,500,000.
Additionally, they reported that they “were informed USDoD intends on leaking the database.” VX-Underground requested and received an advance copy of the data and“reviewed the massive file – 277.1GB uncompressed, and [] confirm[ed] the data present in it is real and accurate.”
They did add that the database does not include the information of individuals who use data opt-out services. Those who did not use this service and resided in the United States could be found immediately.
If confirmed, this breach would be one of the largest breaches in history. The largest breach that has happened was a 2013 breach which affected every single Yahoo account that existed at the time of the breach.
How to protect yourself from a data breach
Avoiding data breaches entirely can be tricky in our ever-digitized world, but consumers can take some steps to help protect themselves going forward.
The basics include creating hard-to-guess passwords and using multifactor authentication when possible. If you receive a notice about a breach, it’s a good idea to change your password and monitor account activity for any suspicious transactions.
You’ll also want to visit a company’s official website for reliable contact information — as scammers sometimes try to take advantage of news like data breaches to gain your trust through look-alike phishing emails or phone calls.
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