National Public Data Data Breach

What happened

In April 2024, a large trove of data made headlines as having exposed "3 billion people" due to a breach of the National Public Data background check service. The initial corpus of data released in the breach contained billions of rows of personal information, including US social security numbers. Further partial data sets were later released including extensive personal information and 134M unique email addresses, although the origin and accuracy of the data remains in question. This breach has been flagged as "unverified" and a full description of the incident is in the link above.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Watch for targeted phishing emails referencing National Public Data — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Stay alert for smishing (SMS phishing) and SIM-swap attempts using your phone number.
• Exposed identity data raises identity-theft risk — consider credit monitoring or a credit freeze.
• Check whether your email address appears in this breach on haveibeenpwned.com.