"Unmasking the 2.9B Data Breach Myth"

There’s been a pretty large dump which alleges to include nearly all SSN.

  1. The course of action recommended, by sac, is to lock down your SSN credit reports. guides here: IntelTechniques Guides

  2. More information about the SSN Leak: Data Breach: 3 Billion National Public Data Records with SSNs Dumped Online


Here is an OSINT take on this breach incident

National Public Data

A Summary and Analysis:

The data breach attributed to a group or entity referred to as "USDoD.” involves a substantial amount of data that has been widely reported in the press, with some claims mentioning the exposure of information for “nearly 3 billion people.”

However, the reality of the matter is the data exhibit several inconsistencies and media promulgates exaggerations in these reports.

Key Points and Analysis:

  1. Inconsistent Numbers and Scope:

    • The breach reportedly involves data on the “entire population of USA, CA, and UK,” which would total around 450 million people. However, the widely circulated figure is 2.9 billion, which doesn’t align with the population figures of the mentioned countries. This discrepancy suggests that the reported number may refer to rows of data rather than distinct individuals.
  2. Financial Motive:

    • The breach is financially motivated, with a demand for $3.5 million in exchange for the data. This highlights the financial incentives that often drive such breaches.
  3. Data Volume:

    • The data is reported to be 200GB when compressed, expanding to 4TB when uncompressed. This vast amount of data underscores the scale of the breach, although the author is more focused on the inconsistency of the numbers being reported.
  4. Data Content and Duplication:

    • The data reportedly includes first and last names, addresses, and Social Security Numbers (SSNs). Actually many rows in the data contain repeated SSNs with different names and addresses, indicating that these rows do not necessarily represent unique individuals. A sampling of 100 million rows showed that only 31% of the rows had unique SSNs, which suggests that the 2.9 billion figure likely refers to rows of data rather than distinct people. This would reduce the estimated number of affected individuals to around 899 million.
  5. Misleading Headlines:

    • we should always take vetting and validation measures before taking headline numbers at face value, emphasizing that “2.9B” might not mean 2.9 billion people but rather 2.9 billion rows of data which some folks in the media do actually acknowledge. This is a crucial distinction in understanding the actual impact of the breach incident.
  6. Verification of Data:

    • The data first appeared in April for sale at $3.5 m which aligns with reports from vx-underground and the original x posts. The dataset contained a total of 277.1GB of uncompressed data across two files( notice not multiple files ) The row count of these files closely matches the 2.9 billion figure, suggesting that the headline number is likely derived from the total number of rows in the dataset.
  7. Data Representation:

    • There is a pattern of data repetition within the dataset, where the same individuals’ information appears multiple times in slightly different forms. This highlights a common issue in large-scale data breaches where the same data can be represented in multiple ways, inflating the perceived scope of the breach.

Analyst comments:

Conducting a critical analysis of the data breach, and questioning the accuracy and interpretation of the numbers does not and should not take away from the severity of this breach incident as reported in the media.

This analysis simply underscores the importance of scrutinizing the data behind such incidents, rather than relying on potentially misleading headlines.

The actual impact of the breach might be less severe than initially reported, with the number of affected individuals likely being lower than the 2.9 billion figure widely cited. The financial motive behind the breach and the repetition of data within the dataset are also key factors in understanding the true nature of this incident.

The nuance here is perception vs. reality and the chaotic mess that is aggregated public data, especially with this breach incident. Beyond the vastly exaggerated claims the issue with USDoD, previously known as NetSec, is that he is a “glory” seeker, and he is building his own threat actor platform ( USDoD[.]io). Fenice appears to be affiliated with USDoD, and pushed this breach into the limelight.

In conclusion, even though this breach incident is indeed legitimate, and the data does exist, it’s just an elaborate push-to-shine effort​:sparkles: taking folks into a new threat actors platform Fenice, the repost threat actor that propelled this leak into the mainstream, even promised to forum users that something big is in the horizon … classic :rofl: I suppose let’s all wait and see what’s next :facepunch:

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for themselves …You can download the files from the following links:https://usdod.io/FBISuckMyBalls/NPD202401.7z
https://usdod.io/FBISuckMyBalls/NPD202402.7z
The password to access these files is “https://usdod.io/” (without the quotation marks). Only Use TOR and be mindful of cloudflare validation and a slow server