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All U.S. Social Security numbers may need to be changed following a massive breach that is already being investigated as a national threat (www.ecoticias.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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According to a protected disclosure filed with the Office of Special Counsel, Borges told the Government Accountability Project that DOGE officials working at Social Security created a “live copy” of the country’s Social Security records in a separate cloud environment that sidestepped usual security checks.

The group says those lapses put the Social Security information of more than 300 million Americans at risk.

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[–] 110 points 8 months ago (11 children)

They actually need to publicly release everyone’s SSNs so that they can’t be used for authentication anymore, which they never should have been

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    SSNs are generally considered public information but how the SSN is linked to other information is usually the more difficult bit to find and it's generally pay-walled. (Any jackass with a business license and a credit card can usually buy background check information for 'hiring'.)

    But no, it shouldn't be solely used for authentication. That is just dumb. However, it can be used as part of a larger verification and validation scheme while building authentication/authorization profiles. In most systems that I have seen that use full or partial SSNs, it is always linked to several other identifiers that need to match.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    They are definitely not. People consider it increased risk for identity theft if they hear their SSN was stolen and you just cited how people are still using them in part for authentication. They need to be completely useless for authentication

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    I am making a slightly different point and have a bias to this perspective: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/SD/19230.pdf

    I am saying that an SSN can be part of a larger validation scheme, not the only key to the castle. Specifically for government sites, SSNs can be linked to IRS data to verify places of last residence. A person generally needs to verify multiple items that are referenced by the SSN before basic authentication can be established and set by the user. (This is part of the full Authentication, Authorization and Access Control triad.)

    An SSN is just a broad level identifier. If you look at many laws around the release of SSNs, the redaction is usually in place to prevent the linking of different documents and other data points.

    If I released my SSN in this chat, I could be fully doxxed in a matter of seconds. It's mainly because there are many legal systems in place that use an SSN as a primary key, of sorts. (It's a bit more than that, as SSNs can be duplicated in some circumstances.)

    So to say, at a high level, an SSN is considered private is absolutely correct. However, it's so easily referenced and obtainable it really isn't fully private either.

    If I was to generate a full list of every possible SSN in the US (which I have done, multiple times), that list is effectively useless to anyone who obtains a copy of it. So, by itself, an SSN is effectively public.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    If I released my SSN in this chat, I could be fully doxxed in a matter of seconds.

    000-00-0002

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I’ve been saying this for literal years now. They should release a publicly searchable database of every single SSN, name, and DOB. Force organizations to stop using those as a form of ID, because they’re not secure and never have been.

    Give it like a year of lead time. Like announce “March 1 2027, we’ll post the database” and then that gives institutions a full year to figure something new out.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    This is the reality in some other countries. In Sweden, our "SSN" is our date of birth followed by four numbers that have different meanings depending on when you were born. During the period I was born it was an area code, and a binary of male/female and a control number. This has changed over time to not be exactly the same for newer generations. All of this information is available publicly to search for through our version of the IRS that then trickles out to various private companies that just publish it out right.

    I personally have a dislike for this system, as I am a major privacy enjoyer. But people can't really do anything with the information if they had it. If someone looks up my name and SSN, they have it, but can't bring me harm.

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