I tried freezing my credit but I think transunion and equifax wouldn’t let me create an account for some reason. Asking me to call them. Anybody else running into the same issue?
I know Ticketmaster just sent out millions of “sorry we got hacked, freeze your credit for free with this code” letters. Maybe they’re struggling to keep up with demand.
Mine was for credit monitoring. You should be able to freeze your credit for free at any time
Are you proxying or using a VPN to access their site. I often see IP blocks, even if that proxy is a simple socks proxy to a VPS i own. Many VPS subnets are blocked/restricted wholesale, as are many of the big VPN endpoint ips.
Yeah I use VPN. Maybe I should jump to random countries or maybe turn it off.
That will 100% cause it with the 3 larger creditors (where fraud targeting is likely one of the highest…)
I did previously and had to wait until a weekday to talk to someone. It was a huge pain. Fuck those agencies.
Fuck those companies, they’d prefer that you thought of them as agencies because it makes them appear to be at least affiliated with the government.
They’re not, they are private companies through and through
Happened to me, too. Just tried again a couple days later and it worked. Dunno why.
Were you on vpn by any chance?
Nope.
Go ahead, steal my identity. See if you have any better luck with it.
I keep all my credit reports frozen. These days, everyone should.
Keep in mind there are 4 providers now, not 3!
Oh? Who’s the new one?
I am. Your login is locked unfortunately. Send me your username and password if you want to unlock it. It’s fairly common. You’ll get your credit score as well.
Such a helpful employee!
User: DaftPensioner Pass: GoRockettes1964!
There are actually more than 3 providers and you should put a freeze on everything you can. You only need unfrozen credit for applying for new lines of credit (loans, credit cards, etc), and unfreezing is a quick process (15 minutes or so).
Here’s a pretty comprehensive guide for protecting yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/IdentityTheft/comments/uvv3ij/psa_freezing_your_three_main_credit_reports_is/
It’s better to take these steps before you get your identity stolen rather than after. These steps can prevent your leaked information from being used against you.
Seems like this post is two years old at this point. Is it still valid?
Even if some of the information is outdated, although I believe it’s all still valid, the main points / TL;DR are absolutely relevant. It’s unlikely that the main bureaus will change, and although the exact steps for freezing may change over time, the emphasis on freezing is important.
makes sense, thanks
Nope, I’m serious. https://innovis.com/
They’ve grown enough to require locking. There’s also https://www.chexsystems.com/ which many banks use for opening checking accounts. They’re unique because they handle stuff that doesn’t show up in a credit report.
The personal data of 2.9 billion people, which includes full names, former and complete addresses going back 30 years, Social Security Numbers, and more, was stolen from National Public Data by a cybercriminal group that goes by the name USDoD. The complaint goes on to explain that the hackers then tried to sell this huge collection of personal data on the dark web to the tune of $3.5 million. It’s worth noting that due to the sheer number of people affected, this data likely comes from both the U.S. and other countries around the world.
What makes the way National Public Data did this more concerning is that the firm scraped personally identifiable information (PII) of billions of people from non-public sources. As a result, many of the people who are now involved in the class action lawsuit did not provide their data to the company willingly.
What exactly makes this company so different from the hacking group that breached them? Why should they be treated differently?
Same with the big three credit reporting bureaus Equifax and whoever the fuck. Did anyone ever give them permission to horde all of their personal info? I don’t think so.
I feel like that might be bad phrasing on the part of the article. They mainly aggregate public records, like legal document style public records, and they also scrapped data from not-(public record) data, which isn’t the same as (not-public) record data.
I feel like I would want more details to be sure though, but scrapping usually refers to “generally available” data.
That all depends. If they’re pulling that private data for use in questionnaires, the terms may not allow them to save it, but they scrape it from the form.
Yeah, it definitely might still be a bad data source,and it’s shady either way, just pointing out that “not public data” has a few meanings, and not all of them are synonymous with “private data”.
All depends on the terms of use from those that provide the data to them that they scraped from. I bet they never expected a customer to do it.
2 billion social security numbers? What’s the population of the US?
Is there a simple way to find out if your Information was in this leak, and what information it is? I use haveibeenpwned for leaks linked to my email address, but from I read in this article, it’s not linked to my email address.
So how do I found out if my data was leaked without paying for a credit monitoring service?
We got notified by email from the credit monitoring our credit card provides.
Good god. Thats like, every person that has ever used a computer probably. Fuck.
Dang, that’s quite a few people. Maybe we can stop linking our identity to a simple number in the US sometime? That would be swell.
Is this why I got the latest scam email saying I need to pay $4k in bitcoin else a video of me wanking would be leaked.
How about you send it to me instead and I’ll pay you the 4k
Oh shit sorry. I must have accidentally sent that email to the wrong person. I meant to send that to my dad.
the U.S. and other countries “around the world”
meaning, for those of us living on other planets, we are completely safe … such a relief ! /s
It’s best to say around the world just so who ever is reading it doesn’t think it region specific.
For example, they could say “the U.S. and other countries in the western hemisphere.”
How do you like : “worldwide (including self centered U.S.A.)” 🤣 ?
The other way works better since National Public Data is based in Florida and because of the name of the company. If it said “International” instead of “National” the readers would assume it is international data.
Based on the location, name of the company, and the breach mentioning social security numbers, stating the US first is the most logical.
This is why I don’t go to the National House of Pancakes.
“Please enter your full name, address and SSN to check if you were exposed!”
Who TF is “National Public Data?”
A company not dumb enough to store anything in the EU, that’s who. They’d be in real trouble now! Phew.
You’re kidding, right?
How did this company leak 2.9 billion people’s info, including SSNs, when the population of the US is only ~350M?
Is “National Public Data” collecting info on everyone internationally? So many questions…
When applying to a US government position with a certain security clearance, they will do background checks of you, your family and extended family, if need be.
And I’m sure that can be the case for any employer who needs background checks. That being said, I also suspect some of these people in the database are dead.
Read the article? Your questions are answered there.
I just assume ssn is for a us audience and its worlwide with equivalent numbers but who knows. I mean there are only 8 bil on the planet so thats like everyone except maybe china, india, and africa
Identity theft monitoring services always scare me. It seems like you are dumping a huge amount of information into a single system and just hoping the vendor is secure. I have access to one but refuse to put much information in. Is this mindset incorrect?
It reminds me of the recent Crowdstrike fiasco: apparently kernel level access was needed for their anti-malware to be able to properly work (because that way their net can cover the entire OS basically), but that high level of access meant that when CrowdStrike fucked up with an update, people’s computers were useless. (Disclaimer, I am not a cybersecurity person and am not offering judgement either way on whether Crowdstrike’s claim about kernel level access was bullshit or not)
In a similar way, in order for identity theft monitoring services to work, they surely will need to hold a heckton of data about you. This is fine if they can be trusted to hold that data securely, but otherwise… ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
I share your unease, though I don’t feel able to comment on the correctness of your mindset. Though I will say that on an individual level, keeping an eye on your credit reports in general (from the major credit agencies) will go a long way to helping there (rather than paying for serviced that give you a score and other fancy “features”, you can request either free or v. low cost report which just has the important stuff you need to know.)
I also know that if you want to be extra cautious, you can manually freeze your credit so basically no new lines of credit can be opened in your name. This is most useful for people who have already been a victim of fraud, or they expect to be at risk (such as by shitty family, or a data breach). I don’t know how one sets this up, but I know that if you did want to set up a new line of credit, you can call to unfreeze your credit, and then freeze it again when your application for the new credit is all done. I have a friend who has had this as their default for years now because of shitty family.
Oh well I feel at this point every man woman and child already had this done to them in United States and our government not doing shit about it.
This one is way more than just the US.
I get a mailer probably every quarter
Hi Steve. Have you heard from Tom? Been a while.
Dude’s living fat and happy
Stack on another “Free monitoring, 2 years”
What if this was just a scheme to get everyone free monitoring
If I get to use them consecutively, I’m good for a few lifetimes.
Just got this bullshit offer from Ticketmaster for one of their breaches and they are only offering 1 year free credit monitoring.
It’s better than the previous class action which got you nothing but a slight discount on a future Ticketmaster purchase to a very select number of concerts.
I read “free credit monitoring” as allowing your name to get on another list to be sold.
Don’t worry. Their is a service that monitors your information that you give credit monitors. You just have to give them your information.
And I’m sure they’ll delete it in two years so you’re not included in the breach 3 years from now 🙄
Yeah not sure I even care enough to take advantage.
Just freeze your credit. It is the simplest and easiest solution. It sucks, but it seems to be the best utensil to eat the shit sandwich we’ve been fed.
It doesn’t even suck that bad. Last time I had to unlock mine, I saw that the previous unlocking had been two years earlier. Each time I have to do it, I set an end date and it automatically relocks. Whole process takes maybe 10 minutes for the big 3 credit bureaus.
A complaint submitted to the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida claims the exposed personal data belongs to a public records data provider named National Public Data, which specializes in background checks and fraud prevention.
What’s with these companies nobody has heard of causing massive fuck ups?
Because companies you’ve never heard of are the ones doing the infrastructure and data warehousing for the public-facing companies you have heard of.
Seems like a good way to have an infosec weak spot…oh…
It’s capitalism. Do you hate America or something?
