153 Million Driver’s Licenses Were Allegedly Put Up for Sale on the Dark Web. Now the FBI Is Investigating
The alleged cache also includes millions of ID cards and travel documents, raising fears of identity theft and fraud.
A new identity-theft service that reportedly launched on the dark web this week could rank among the largest-ever exposures of government-issued identity documents in history.
The service is allegedly selling digital scans of more than 153 million driver’s licenses from people across the U.S. and Canada, putting tens of millions of people at risk of identity theft and fraud.
Brian Krebs of KrebsOnSecurity said he was first
Brian Krebs of KrebsOnSecurity said he was first alerted to the news after seeing his own driver’s license offered up as a free sample. This discovery led him to a dark web site selling digital scans of millions of driver’s licenses belonging to people in the U.S. and Canada, along with more than 10 million identification cards, over three million travel documents and international IDs, and at least 579,000 medical cards.
“We have been continuously exfiltrating new data for over a year into our private database,” the service said in an introductory post on Exploit, a long-running Russian-language cybercrime forum that serves as a marketplace for hackers. “Records are available to preview before purchase with pertinent information redacted. Customer photos are displayed if available.”
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Krebs confirmed the data’s authenticity with nine individuals before the site itself vanished shortly after his report was published.
The FBI confirmed to Inc
The FBI confirmed to Inc. that it has since opened an investigation into the matter but declined to comment further “due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.”
Jason Soroko, a senior fellow at Sectigo, a provider of certificate lifecycle management, told Inc. the scale of the alleged breach raises the stakes well beyond typical stolen data. “If the material is authentic at the reported scale, criminals have gained more than names and numbers,” he said. “They have copies of the documents that banks, retailers, and online services rely on to decide who is real.”
Source: www.inc.com
