Months after a trove of personal data it had collected was stolen, US data broker National Public Data has filed for bankruptcy. In its filing the company admits that the number of people impacted by the data theft is much higher than previously reported.
Earlier this year personal data belonging to “hundreds of millions” of people was stolen from US data broker National Public Data. The company admitted to the scope of the theft in a bankruptcy filing. Several outlets are reporting on the story.
National Public Data indicated that the stolen data included names, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers and social security numbers. National Public Data’s parent company Jerico Pictures admits that there are “hundreds of millions of potentially impacted individuals.” According to the news site TechCrunch, security experts estimate the number of stolen Social Security numbers to be around 270 million.
Of all the information stolen, the Social Security numbers are considered especially sensitive, because they can be used as proof of identity – meaning criminals could potentially use the information to commit identity theft.
Another instance of privatized profits and socialized losses. “We collected sensitive data for profit but protecting it and dealing with the fallout is too expensive so it’s everyone’s problem now, bye!”
Freeze your credit if you haven’t already!