You may have read the horrifying headlines about a MASSIVE data breach of pretty much every U.S. citizen’s social security number.

Here’s what you need to know about this particular breach… BUT even if you’re dubious about this being a real deal, you still need to take action — for you, your dad, your kids and anyone in your personal circle who might be vulnerable to ID theft and fraud.

Fast Facts about the National Public Data Breach

The largest data breach ever?

Hmmm. Haven’t I written that before? Yep, several times. This time the scuttlebutt is that 3 billion people are affected — and there are just under 350 million in the U.S., and just over 8 billion people on the planet. There’s already a class action suit.

The data breach is “unverified”

Troy Hunt runs one of the best data breach monitoring sites around, Have I Been Pwned?. Troy wrote extensively about what happened — and even he can’t exactly figure out what happened.

But one thing we are (probably) sure of is that the database of personal info that showed up on the dark web is (probably) flawed with inaccurate info. That being said, Troy says some info has been verified.

Besides questionable data, the list contains people who died… some decades ago.

Where did “they” get this info?

A company called National Public Data aggregates large volumes of personal info for “Criminal Records, Background Checks and more. Our services are currently used by investigators, background check websites, data resellers, mobile apps, applications and more.“

This means that it wasn’t something that you signed up for or info from one of your personal accounts.

When did this happen?

Great question… the first sightings were in April when a bad guy put it up for sale for $3.5 million. It’s been kicking around for several months, but when the class action suit came up this week, it made headlines.

What do you need to do after this data breach?

Don’t wait to verify if your info is correct in this data breach. It doesn’t matter at this point. You should always assume that your social security number and other info is in another stolen data base somewhere else. Take action now.

Check National Public Data for your info

A site called Pentester set up a search engine to see if your info was involved. I checked mine, and it has my records from California but not Tennessee or Pennsylvania or Texas. The addresses are right, but my birthdate is wrong. My phone number and maybe my SSN are correct. Note that I have four records in the database.

I checked my hubby as well. He has six records from various addresses in CA. His birthday is right.

Check your info. Your dad’s info. Your kids’ info. Everyone’s info. And even if you find nothing, take the next steps anyway.

Freeze your credit

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to put a freeze on your credit in this world full of cybercriminals. A freeze will prevent bad guys (and mean girls) from being able to open credit cards and loans in your name and generally muck up your life.

You need to do the three major bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. It doesn’t take long. Just do it.

One drawback to freezing your credit

Freezing your credit is the smart thing to do, but there’s something you need to know. If you are buying a house or a car or just want to open a credit card account for the nice check-out lady at Macy’s who will give you 20% off right away, you’re going to have to login to each and unfreeze them. When I was buying this house, I unfroze the accounts for a short window so that all of the people who had to know all of the things could get in. But then they automatically froze themselves again.

Ok. I’m lying a little. I forgot to refreeze one of them. It nagged at me. I just did it today.

What if your SSN is out there?

It’s probably already out there, as is almost everybody’s. People on the dark web can buy it for like two or four bucks. It’s an important piece of info, but it’s not as valuable as login credentials.

Get your password house in order

Y’all… you’ve heard me say this before. You cannot reuse passwords at all. Never. Nuh-uh. Stop it. Instead, do these three things:

• Use a password manager and generate a long, complicated, unique password for every place you register.
• Enable multi-factor authentication everywhere it’s offered. That’s the annoying two-step process where they send you a code to enter. It takes less time than resetting your password because you forgot it… or having to upend your life when you get hacked.
• Switch to passkeys whenever you have the opportunity.