In another blow to people who care about maintaining their privacy and data security, one of the largest background check companies just confirmed that it suffered a massive data breach. National Public Data resells background check data including names, personal addresses and social security numbers. NPD's public statement was rather terse:
The incident is believed to have involved a third-party bad actor that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023, with potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024.
NPD has not acknowledged the extent of the breach, but Fox News and other media sources have reported that the social security numbers and personal information of everyone in the US, Canada and UK may have been compromised.
What can I do?
NPD has not offered a remedy for all the individuals (including children) who may have been victims of the breach. Their only suggestion is to monitor your credit report looking for any suspicious changes, and they suggest placing a fraud alert or credit freeze as a preventative measure.
In our global financial system as currently imagined, privacy is not normal and large corporations collect and share our personal data making us vulnerable to hackers and identity theft. Hopefully this latest data breach is less severe than it currently appears to be.