3 Billion People Exposed In Massive Unreported Data Theft

It's one of the "biggest data breaches ever" and you might be exposed as a result. 

Background check company Jerico Pictures Inc., which does business under the name National Public Data was breached back hackers earlier this year, a new lawsuit alleges. 

The suit says that as a result, 2.9 billion people have had confidential data exposed and stolen, according to a new report from Mashable.

The worst part is that those impacted by this cyberattack may be unaware of their involvement since National Public Data allegedly collects data from non-public sources without consent.

The breach has exposed information on nearly 3 billion people, including full names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and personal details of both living and deceased relatives.

The Mashable report says that this previously unknown breach's timing remains unclear.

Plaintiff Christopher Hofmann learned of it in July when an identity theft protection service alerted him that his data had been leaked on the dark web. The hackers posted the "National Public Data" database on a dark web forum in April, seeking $3.5 million from a buyer.

Last month, Mashable also reported on RockYou2024, a massive leak of nearly 10 billion users' credentials, though it was an updated compilation of older breaches.

With billions of records exposed, the National Public Data breach could be one of the largest ever, comparable to Yahoo's 2013 breach affecting 3 billion accounts.

Great news if you're AT&T's PR department though, we guess...