Your morning will be going worse if you click that link.

I mean, let's be real -- 50% of the USA's SSN is on a dark web site due to the Equifax breach.

Freeze your credit, it's the only way to protect yourself. All of the ID protection services are just overpriced insurance and don't actually prevent ID theft.

Ah, the Shared Security Number...

Equifax leak. Half of Americans' SSNs are on the dark web.

The dark web site that has your SSN: first.100,000,000.digits.of.pi.txt - Torrent Download

Your info was probably already out there, somewhere. It's most likely in a massive list with thousands of others. It's still not great, but you're not being targeted. This is why it's important to freeze your credit with each bureau.

Just another reminder that using your SSN for ID verification purposes and acting like it's a secret code only you could ever know is a dumb fucking system. Even the "verify with your last 4 digits" is a dumb fucking system. If you have a date of birth and a decent idea of birthplace, you can take a pretty good guess about the first 5 digits because they're sequential from known blocks. It wasn't until about 20 years ago that the government randomized the first 5 to stop that.

I found that my ssn was leaked because I got multiple attempts to take put credit loans. Incidentally, my middle initial is not I, but l. Joke's on them. Every time I see the incorrect middle initial, it's an easy way to tell.

Needless to say, my stuff has been locked for years and only unlocked when I need to take out a loan or open a new account which is extremely rare.

Well get a lamp then, discover. Sheesh.

This amuses me that it's talking about a "Dark Web site" while itself is a dark website.

Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme

By "found" they mean, "accidentally sold to".

Eh, it’s probably been on the dark web for a while now given how frequent and massive data leaks have become. Worry more about unauthorized use/access to your credit and/or identity.

1. Place freezes on your credit for Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax (it’s free)
2. Lock any credit cards you don’t use regularly
3. Pull your credit reports from each agency (you get one a year for free) and verify activity
4. Enable balance notifications for your credit cards and bank accounts (eg, high transaction amount = $0.00 will alert you to every purchase made)
5. Opt out of Data Brokers like LexusNexus
6. Don’t use the same password for multiple websites. If you don’t already, use a password manager like KeePass and let it generate new passwords for you

It’s all about the diligence these days. Your morning should be fine. The worst thing you can receive is a high transaction amount alert you didn’t authorize. But card companies and banks have gotten good about dealing with those when they happen.

But my nuclear attack sub should be hidden in the depths off the gulf of guinea. How did it end up on the dark net?

I would be surprised if anyone's SSN isn't on a dark web site. Being combined with other personal data is a problem, although the biggest problem is that credit companies treat easily found information as secret and let criminals easily impersonate people by knowing those few easily shared pieces of information without some kind of real security or easy way for people to contest fraud.

Not surprising. I am thinking about creating a foss self hosted scrapper that detects breaches

I probably won't though

First time?

First time?

It's not great but it's not really world ending. About a year ago someone filed for unemployment in bot my wife's name and my name. Which came as a shock to my employer as I was was still happily at work. I work for a small mom-n-pop store, my wife works at a mega corporation. She caries insurance etc and one of her companies providers had a leak of ssn and other personal information. We both locked our credit and signed up for a protection pin for filing taxes. We reported to the local unemployment office that they were fraudulent claims. I look back and realized we probably should have locked our credit long ago and got tax pins as well, just for the security side of things.

The funny thing is my employer brought it to my attention. My wife's employer didn't even notice and was getting ready to pay the claim even tho she was still working there as the system is all automated in her company. Eventually it came out about the leak and they are providing 5 years of credit monitoring for free.

I get these notices like every other month, it's why I have credit monitoring.