By Alex Moore
A recent lawsuit claims that hackers have gained access to billions of records of personal information, including Americans’ names, phone numbers, addresses, and Social Security numbers. Filed in Florida on August 1 on behalf of Christopher Hoffman, it alleges that a group of cyber criminals called USDoD (no relation to the US Department of Defense) conducted the hack around April 2024, then published the stolen data for sale on the dark web for $3.5 million.
What might surprise you is that the lawsuit doesn’t target the Social Security Administration or any other government entity. Instead, it names a background check company called National Public Data (NPD), as the defendant.
So why would a background check company have access to millions of Americans’ private information? Allegedly, NPD collected the data by “scraping” it from non-public sources. (Scraping is a process in which computer programs pull information down from web pages or other digital sources.) This means that NPD collected its data without anyone’s consent, used that data to turn a profit, and then failed to protect it. In fact, Hoffman, the lawsuit’s plaintiff, only learned that his data had been collected after his identity theft protection service notified him that his data had been compromised in the hack.
You might think that collecting Americans’ data without their consent would be illegal, but sadly it’s not. Any business that produces data through its operations is free to share or sell that data unless its terms and conditions state otherwise, and some businesses exist for the sole purpose of collecting personal data that they can sell to third parties.
How to Protect Yourself
One of the best ways seniors can protect themselves from data theft and identity fraud is by freezing their credit. This process, which prevents potential creditors from requesting your credit report, is free. While it can’t protect your information from being stolen in the first place, it does prevent hackers and other criminals from taking out loans, opening credit cards, and making other transactions in your name.
To freeze your credit, you’ll need to contact each of the U.S.’s three big credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. These companies will let you submit a request to freeze your credit online, by phone, or by mail, and they can complete the process in as little as one business day. You can always contact them to quickly unfreeze your credit if someone needs to run a credit check on you for any legitimate reason.
One other option is to hire an identity theft protection service. These companies monitor your credit, let you know if they see any suspicious activity, and help you recover any money lost to fraud. Some even provide identity fraud insurance.
