In a major security incident, personal information about individuals in the United States has been leaked on a leading hacking forum. The data leak is one of the largest of its kind ever recorded and it has exposed almost 2.7 billion records that contain personal information about individuals in the US. Various sensitive details such as names, Social Security numbers, and physical addresses are included in this massive data breach; hence raising serious concerns about individual privacy.

These records were allegedly stolen from National Public Data, which compiles and sells individual’s personal information. As for background checks, criminal record verification and other investigative purposes National Public Data collects public data to make up comprehensive profiles. A hacker calling himself USDoD claimed to have secured this data at a cost of $3.5 million in April 2024. Primarily, according to USDoD, it was disclosed that the dataset contained 2.9 billion records encompassing persons in America, UK and Canada.

However, a hacker, who is also referred to as Fenice, had just put up for free on the breached hacking forum the most complete version ever of stolen data. The said hacker claimed that this act was not performed by any USDoD agent but by SXUL. There are 277GB worth of leaked files with approximately 2.7 billion plain records in them. It is yet to be verified whether the dataset is fully authentic or covers all areas as stated. Several people whose private and family members’ information has been exposed in this case have attested to this claim. However, there are problems such as false social security numbers and out-of-date addresses, with hints suggesting that these could represent an older backup.

While the Breach was extensive, it does not impact all Americans indiscriminately. It is important to mention though that many records include multiple residences over time for individuals thus reducing the count may reduce number of persons affected below total record count.