National Public Data files for bankruptcy following a major data breach

National Public Data, a background verification service provided by Jerico Pictures Inc., has filed for bankruptcy following a significant data security incident it suffered earlier this year.

 

In August, a threat actor going by the name “Fenice” leaked 2.9 billion records containing sensitive personal data belonging to the National Public Data (NPD), a background-checking service provider which collects personal data of individuals from non-public sources.

 

The huge trove of data was divided in two links, totalling a whopping 277 GB worth of information. The leaked database contained names, addresses, cities, counties, states, ZIP codes and Social Security Numbers in plain text which posed a significant threat to affected individuals.

 

In April, another threat actor going by the name “sxul” claimed that they infiltrated the internal network of NPD and stole a personal information database which they offered to sell for $2 million on the dark web.

 

In a filing with the Office of Maine Attorney General, NPD said that it has identified at least 1.3 million individuals whose sensitive personal data has been compromised as a result of the data security incident.

 

The company recently filed for Chapter 11 in the bankruptcy court for the Southern District of Florida. NPD Company president Salvatore Verini, Jr. said that the company has been slapped with multiple class action lawsuits after the hackers went public about the data breach and announced that they were in possession of millions of Social Security Numbers and other sensitive personal data records.

 

Verini, Jr. added that the company has to pay for credit monitoring and identity protection services “for hundreds of millions of potentially impacted individuals.”

 

“The enterprise cannot generate sufficient revenue to address the extensive potential liabilities, not to mention, defend the lawsuits and support the investigations,” read the court documents. Furthermore, the background verification company is undergoing several investigations led by federal and state-level law enforcement agencies, including the US Federal Trade Commission.