A new lawsuit is claiming hackers have gained access to the personal information of “billions of individuals,” including their Social Security numbers, current and past addresses and the names of siblings and parents — personal data that could allow fraudsters to infiltrate financial accounts or take out loans in their names.
The allegation arose in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Christopher Hofmann, a California resident who claims his identity theft protection service alerted him that his personal information had been leaked to the dark web by the “nationalpublicdata.com” breach. The lawsuit was earlier reported by Bloomberg Law.
The breach allegedly occurred around April 2024, with a hacker group called USDoD exfiltrating the unencrypted personal information of billions of individuals from a company called National Public Data (NPD), a background check company, according to the lawsuit. Earlier this month, a hacker leaked a version of the stolen NPD data for free on a hacking forum, tech site Bleeping Computer reported.
Having to deal with this inevitable shitshow is the only reason I haven’t done this yet. Every interaction I’ve ever had with these two companies has been a dumpster fire.
It was easy for me. I was able to do all three online with no issues. Just offering some anecdotal evidence to offset one other persons story.
Trying now. So far,
Equifax website logged in fine but I got sidetracked by something else so it timed me out. Try to login again and it gives me a blank page. Disabled ad blockers, cleared cookies, closed browser etc… Same thing.
Experian website says my email doesn’t exist (an email I previously setup specifically for Experian). Ok submit lost password form using phone number and social… It says to enter the code texted to the same number which they’re showing as existing… Never get the code. Resent code. Never get the code. Click “sign in another way”, taken back to original login page.
TransUnion absolutely flawless.
Now I have to go slide my cock back into the blender which is Equifax and Experian in hopes I can access my own information before a hacker does. I’d say it’s 50:50 odds on that.
Edit:
Tried Experian “forgot username” option. It asks for date of birth and full social. Says the shit doesn’t match! How in the actual fuck?
I had some issues too. One was my overly locked-down FF browser. Once I switched over to my more relaxed FF DE it worked better. Had to attempt the text code a couple of times on Experian for it to eventually work. All three locked now and the frustrations were mostly minor.
The biggest frustration was that I had to do all of this in the first place. Now I am compelled to maintain accounts with these damn credit bureaus too. I just love modern conveniences.
Also, there is a fourth credit “bureau” called Innovis. I did nothing with them. Should I? Checking account creation via banks also use ChexSystems. Theoretically, a checking account could be opened in your name. I did nothing with them, either. Not sure if I need to.