President Joe Biden’s administration is grappling with responding to what could be the largest public data breach in U.S. history.
An anonymous online profile known as USDoD claimed to be selling 2.9 billion records containing personal data, including the names and Social Security numbers of every American.
The Department of Defense said it received the classified information from National Public Data (NPD), a U.S. government contractor that collects and sells access to personal data.
The NPD data breach caught the attention of local lawmakers because the company is headquartered in Florida.
U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) issued a statement calling on President Biden to explain the hack and what will be done to protect the data of Americans.
“While we learn more about this breach, the Biden-Harris Administration must detail what it is doing to hold National Public Data, the contractor who stored this data, accountable for its failure to protect against this hack,” Scott said.
NPD was hit with a class action lawsuit alleging that it was negligent in properly protecting and securing confidential information that it sold as part of its business model.
Scott also called on Biden to explain how the US government would attempt to recover the stolen data.
“The American people have a right to know what is being done to recover this data and how the Administration intends to protect them and ensure that a security breach of this magnitude never happens again,” Scott said.
The NPD data breach is just one of many public data breaches that have occurred this year.
For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is investigating approximately 1,000 breaches of medical data systems.
Each breach gave hackers access to the protected health information of at least 500 individuals, resulting in the personal health information of millions of Americans being stolen by unknown attackers.
