Massive data breach affected Coral Springs-based company: cybercriminal group allegedly stolen 2.9 billion personal records

Coral Springs, Florida – A new lawsuit alleges that a cybercriminal organization acquired the personal information of 2.9 billion people from a Coral Springs-based background-check company.

A news release from Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP, a firm looking into the hack, claims that a cybercriminal gang known as USDoD was responsible for the April data breach at Jerico Pictures, Inc., which is the operator of National Public Data (NPD).

The data, which researchers estimate include names, address histories, family members, and Social Security numbers going back at least three decades, was purportedly acquired by USDoD on the dark web on April 8.

A database known as “National Public Data” was uploaded by the cybercriminal organization to a dark web forum. The proposed class action complaint was filed on Thursday in a federal court in Florida, and it claims that it offered to sell the database for $3.5 million.

Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe claim that NPD, which is located at 1555 Heron Bay Blvd., has not acknowledged the breach or disclosed what data might have been taken.

According to the announcement, NPD collects data from a variety of sources, including databases of public information, national and state databases, and court records. The business then sells the confidential information to a variety of businesses, such as data resellers, investigators, app developers, and background check websites.

The almost three billion affected parties did not knowingly give the information to NPD, claims the proposed lawsuit.

If verified, the data leak would be among the biggest in history.

A California man named Christopher Hofmann is one of the plaintiffs in the court petition. He claims that in July, he received a notification from his identity-theft protection provider that his personal data had been compromised and uploaded to the dark web.

Hoffman claimed that NPD had broken several civil law rules, such as those pertaining to unjust enrichment and carelessness. In addition to court-mandated data security changes at NPD, he is requesting financial redress.

Those affected by the data leak could become victims of financial fraud and identity theft, according to Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe.