Major data breach involved ‘only’ 1.3 million people

Information from a hacking group and a class action lawsuit document sourced by Bloomberg Law reported that a recent data breach of 2.9 billion personal records leaked sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers. But until now, National Public Data (NPD) had not officially confirmed the breach or the number of affected users.

In a new statement about the breach, NPD explained: “There appears to have been a data security incident that may have involved some of your personal information. The incident is believed to have involved a third-party bad actor that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023, with potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024.” Separately, in a notification about the breach on the Maine Attorney General’s website, it was revealed a total of 1.3 million people were affected.

If it turns out to be true that just 1.3 million people were affected by the breach, that’ll be relatively great news. The 2.9 billion number, after all, was at a scale that made it one of the worst data breaches in internet history.

So far, no official mention of any affected U.K. or Canadian victims has been made. However, NPD states that it is cooperating with law enforcement, reviewing the affected records, and will try to notify those affected if further significant developments apply to affected users.

The National Public Data strongly encourages you to take preventive measures to help prevent and detect fraudulent activity by closely monitoring your financial activity. NPD also recommends contacting the three U.S. credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) for free credit reports.

You can also place a fraud alert that tells creditors to contact you before anyone tries to change existing accounts or open new ones. For example, when you place a fraud alert with TransUnion, it must legally let Equifax and Experian know.

If you have never dealt with either credit agency, you’ll have an easier time placing a credit freeze or fraud alert with TransUnion than Equifax or Experian. We’ll have to wait and see if the number stays at 1.3 million.