Hacker Group Leaks 2.7 Billion Records, Including Americans' Social Security Numbers

A picture taken on October 17, 2016 shows an employee walking behind a glass wall with machine coding symbols

A group of hackers reportedly stole 2.7 billion records holding personal information from American citizens, including Social Security numbers and physical addresses, which the group claims has been posted online.

A hacking group known as USDoD claimed to have stolen the massive amount of private data in April, from National Public Data (NPD), which holds personal information for employers, private investigators and other agencies for the purpose of background checks.

“If this in fact is pretty much the whole dossier on all of us, it certainly is much more concerning than prior breaches,” said Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director for the U.S. Public Information Research Group. “And if people weren’t taking precautions in the past, which they should have been doing, this should be a five-alarm wake-up call for them.”

NPD is currently facing a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Florida relating to the data breach.

The hacker group offered to sell the data, which includes records from citizens in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, for $3.5 million.

A screenshot taken by BleepingComputer, a cybersecurity news outlet, showcased a hacker going by the name of “Felice”, on a forum discussing the NPD hack.

“Greetings, BreachForums members. I am here to inform you that the full NPD database has been breached by SXUL is now available to download,” said the hacker going by the screenname Fenice. “I have a even more bigger database to share that is not related to NPD, wait for the next chapter. Ps: There is a new player in town.”

Yahoo News reported that NPD did not respond to a request for a comment on the matter, and the company has not informed the public about the breach.

The outlet did claim that people who have contacted NPD have gotten a response that states, “we are aware of certain third-party claims about consumer data and are investigating these issues.”

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