President Joe Biden’s administration is facing pressure to respond to what could be the largest public data leak in the history of the US.
An anonymous online profile known as USDoD claimed to be selling 2.9 billion records containing the personal data of every American, including physical names and social security numbers.
USDoD stated it had obtained the sensitive information from National Public Data (NPD), a US government contractor collecting and selling access to personal data.
The NPD data leak, given the company is headquartered in Florida, captured the attention of local lawmakers.
US Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) released a statement demanding President Biden provide answers vis-a-vis the hack and what will be done to protect Americans’ data.
“While we learn more about this breach, the Biden-Harris administration must detail what is being done to hold the contractor that was holding this data, National Public Data, accountable for its failure to protect against this hack,” said Scott.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against NPD for negligence in properly securing and safeguarding the sensitive information it marketed as part of its business model.
Scott further requested Biden explain how the US government will attempt to recover the stolen data.
“The American people also deserve to know what is being done to recover this data, and how the administration is going to protect them and ensure that a security breach of this magnitude never happens again,” said Scott.
NPD’s data breach is only one of numerous major breaches of public data this year.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), for example, is investigating nearly one thousand different breaches of healthcare data systems.
Each breach enables hackers to access the protected health information of at least 500 or more individuals. Consequently, millions of Americans have had their personal health information stolen by unknown actors.
