All Americans should have frozen their credit years ago.
Social Insecurity: Billions of Social Security Number and Passwords
Submitted 3 days ago by Beep@lemmus.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.upguard.com/breaches/social-insecurity-billions-of-social-security-number-and-passwords
Comments
hansolo@lemmy.today 3 days ago
rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
According to SSA they have issued under 500m SSNs and they are not reassigned after death. How have BILLIONS been found?
RattlerSix@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The article says more clearly “2.7 billion records with Social Security numbers.” The author goes on to say he found 4 records with a friend’s data but in those 4 records were 3 different SSNs. He called the friend and confirmed that one of them was his actual SSN. I guess someone was auto-linking names and SSNs for ID theft purposes and getting it wrong sometimes.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Its probably a mix of SSNs and EINs, there is no limit to the amount of EINs you can have. Except for the fact they will only issue one a day to a person.
solrize@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
If this is US social security numbers, they only have 9 digits so there can’t be billions of them.
treadful@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
They get reused.
solrize@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html :
Q20: Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?
A: No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.