Technology FBI probes report of data breach exposing millions of drivers' licenses in US, Canada

[The Helper]

The FBI said on Wednesday it was investigating a report that tens of millions of drivers' licenses belonging to people ‌in the United States and Canada were being sold on the dark web.

On ‌Tuesday, the independent journalist Brian Krebs said he had discovered a dark web site selling digital scans of millions of drivers' licenses from people in the U.S. and Canada. He said he confirmed the authenticity of the data being sold with nine people.

In a brief statement on Wednesday, the bureau said it was "looking into the incident" but could not comment "due to the ongoing nature of the investigation."

The ‌breach, if confirmed, could be one ⁠of the largest-ever exposures of government-issued identity documents in North America, creating risks of identity theft and fraud for tens of millions of people.

Krebs ⁠said he was alerted to the site after it was advertised on a Russian cybercrime forum, with his own driver's license being offered as a free sample. Krebs said the service, dubbed Nexus, claimed to have tens of millions of licenses for people in the U.S. and Canada, as well as ‌millions of other identification cards and travel documents and hundreds of thousands of medical records. Krebs said that the site appeared to be updating its database of stolen data in real time, indicating that it was being fed by a live breach.

FBI probes report of data breach exposing millions of drivers' licenses in US, Canada

By Raphael Satter WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The FBI said on Wednesday it was investigating a report that tens of millions of drivers' licenses belonging to people in the United States and Canada

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[The Helper]

Was your driver's license one of the 153 million for sale on the dark web?

We hear about cybersecurity breaches all the time, but the latest one includes the selling of 153 million drivers' licenses on the dark web, including the license of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This digital scan was found by Investigative reporter Brian Krebs, who has his own site, KrebsOnSecurity.

He confirmed he was alerted to the identity theft site when his digital driver's license was shared. All in all, there seem to be at least 153 million driver's licenses on the dark web. These are digital scans of the official documents from people in America and Canada. In the article, Krebs ties the cyber breach to a major ID verification company that provides services for companies like Hertz, Waste Management, and FedEx, among others.

That company, ID-Scan, hasn't responded as of yet.

So, what if your driver's license was one of the 153-million sold? The information is out there. There's no way to check; I mean, you don't want to be on the dark web, and there's no way of getting the info back.

Was your driver's license one of the 153 million for sale on the dark web?

This digital scan was found by Investigative reporter Brian Krebs, who has his own site, KrebsOnSecurity. All in all, there seem to be at least 153 million driver's licenses on the dark web. In the ...

www.yahoo.com

 

[The Helper]

Hackers Had A Live Feed Of Every ID This Verification Company Scanned. For Over A Year.

From the very beginning of this recent obsession with identifying everyone online (yes, they like to call it “age” verification, but it always ends up as identity verification), we’ve been pointing out that it was a huge privacy nightmare waiting to happen. Or maybe it wasn’t waiting. Maybe it was already happening.

This week a massive new data breach has been revealed that should put the nail in the coffin for the idea that any sort of age or identity verification could be safe. 153 million scans of drivers licenses easily available based on this breach, with more being added all the time. Literally on the day it was revealed (and right before the site was taken down) it added another 400,000 records to its available database.

There is no safe age verification. There is no age verification that doesn’t put people at risk.

Last year, Eric Goldman wrote the definitive piece on how all of these technologies — no matter what they tell you — are huge privacy risks, but people are still living in denial. This is despite the numerous examples we’ve had in just the past few years of verification providers and their customers having massive data breaches.

The latest comes to us via Brian Krebs, who reports on a massive breach of scanned IDs — more than 153 million drivers licenses from people across the US and Canada, now for sale on the dark web:

A new identity theft service launched on the dark web this week is selling digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the United States and Canada. Based on interviews with individuals whose licenses are available for purchase on this service, it appears to be siphoning images collected by a widely-used identity verification company based in Louisiana. KrebsOnSecurity also has learned that the New Orleans field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) today launched an official inquiry into the source of the images.

Krebs traces the breach back to an ID verifier that appears to be used by many companies, including Hertz, the rental car company. It appears to not be limited to them either, as he checked with a number of people who were in the database, and by looking at the date they were added alongside their calendars, found examples of other people who shared their ID at places like a pot dispensary.

Hackers Had A Live Feed Of Every ID This Verification Company Scanned. For Over A Year.

From the very beginning of this recent obsession with identifying everyone online (yes, they like to call it “age” verification, but it always ends up as identity verification), we&#821…

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