Our Daily Breach: An usurper to the throne
After only a week of reading these colossal cybersecurity failures, one thing is certain: there will be an usurper to the throne.
On this day last year I reported on the National Public Data breach which was the largest breach at the time. I still remember writing that piece, sitting there reading until my coffee went cold trying to wrap my head around the scale of 2.9 billion records.
I would never get the chance to ask them about any of this because Jericho Pictures, the original owner of National Public Data filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In December, the NPD website also reported that they would be closed with this chilling message reminding everyone how long they had been collecting data without anyone's consent:
It is with sincere regret that we inform you that National Public Data, after two decades serving the data industry, has closed. To learn more, please view the Security Incident below or optionally, by calling the hotline at (800) 823-1499.
For months, the NPD breach reigned supreme. It was the ultimate treasure trove of private information. While researching what's going on with NPD these days (wait for it) I saw that https://www.npdbreach.com/ is now part of https://databreach.com/
DataBreach.com is a neat site that I wish existed last year when I started writing these articles. The website provides a nice overview and even an API of all known data breaches. Their breaches page enables you to sort by data breach size. Here's what it looks the rankings by size look like today:
The reign of NPD did not last long. It was only a year and change before that xhole ruined everything. I had heard about the Twitter breach when it happened, but I left the platform ages ago so didn't pay as much attention to it, otherwise I would have known we all have a new titleholder of terrible data governance.
Who shall usurp this new king?
It's hard to say, but I have a sneaking suspicion that NPD is not out of the race yet. The NPD website has suddenly come back to life and the domain is registered under a new owner: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
I damn near spit out my coffee reading that. It's not just the notoriety and lack of privacy associated with NPD, but the fact that they didn't bother with basic privacy with their own contact information that most domain name registrars offer.
I don't know who this Florida entity is or why they're trying to revive NPD but X(Twitter) better step it up and start leaking files, because it looks like NPD is coming to claim the throne that was once rightfully theirs.
