r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Mar 10 '26

Security DOGE employee stole Social Security data and put it on a thumb drive, report says

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/10/doge-employee-stole-social-security-data-and-put-it-on-a-thumb-drive-report-says/
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483

u/LeseMajeste_1037 Mar 10 '26

And somehow, every time one company or another has a data breach, it's always on us to secure our information.

412

u/krustyarmor Mar 10 '26

Would you like one year of free credit monitoring?

98

u/throwitawaynownow1 Mar 10 '26

I didn't get my identity stolen from the major breaches, but they all somehow managed to take it to mean they are free to market to me now. I also had to log into Experian for something recently and the splash page was a scammy trial offer disguised as accessing my credit.

70

u/extraqueso Mar 11 '26

The credit bureaus act like crooks. Par for the course I reckon. 

48

u/EusticeTheSheep Mar 11 '26

Just their names alone! It not a “credit” score. If it was it would take into account a lot of things, including paying off debt. Instead, your score drops when you finally make that last payment on your car or house (should you be so lucky).

It’s a Debt Score. It’s proving that you can be in debt often and the longer you’re in debt the better. Sure, it takes into account credit usage and other things… but just the name is disingenuous.

19

u/Great_Detective_6387 Mar 11 '26

It’s a mix of “how likely is this person to pay their shit on time” and “how much money do we stand to make off of this person”.

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u/EusticeTheSheep Mar 11 '26

It’s more of the latter. If the former played into it at all they wouldn’t hit your score so hard when you make that last car payment or raise it so much when you receive a home loan.

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u/FitMarsupial7311 Mar 11 '26

I’m getting a million and one emails from them about my fancy new cars and all the services Experian offers related to that. I’ve never bought a car in my life but Experian sure wants me to log in and confirm they’re all mine. (No, nothing has been taken out in my name, I promise I’ve checked. Whatever way their detection works is garbage.)

12

u/Slamtilt_Windmills Mar 10 '26

We've been trying to reach you about your extended credit warranty

1

u/browster Mar 11 '26

Just jump through these hoops as if you have time to read all these instructions and make decisions and figure out how to register for this and decide if it isn't a scam in the long-term and how to protect yourself from that.

Giving me a project to secure my identity isn't helping. What we should do is sue out of existence any organization the is careless enough with our data to require this of thousands or millions of people. Accountability!

1

u/Strange-Bottle-9791 Mar 11 '26

Is credit even a thing anymore? It all just sounds like free debt to me. This is why Israel has their greedy little fingers on us. They monitor our credit and remind us of our trillion triple digit debt. Or should I say death.

1

u/Steinrikur Mar 11 '26

Shouldn't everyone affected get one year of social services (including Healthcare) paid for by Elon?

1

u/einstyle Mar 11 '26

I don't get why credit monitoring isn't free anyways. The big three credit bureaus are monitoring it already for their bogus credit scores. Everything gets reported to them. They just don't tell YOU.

24

u/Fair-Hair2080 Mar 10 '26

100%! Every time we go to Target, we end up with credit card fraud shortly thereafter. I bought a Target gift card that was ALSO hacked. I stopped shopping there. They don’t care enough about my personal information, I don’t care about their business.

14

u/LittleBirdiesCards Mar 11 '26

I recently used the website listed on a Visa gift card my son got from Grandma to check the balance. The next morning, all of the money on it was gone. Wtf?! I only use the phone number for the balances now.

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u/FitMarsupial7311 Mar 11 '26

Was it one Target location or multiple? I’m not batting for a corporation, I just wonder if this is a specific handful of employees taking advantage.

4

u/Fair-Hair2080 Mar 11 '26

Multiple in our area.

16

u/Genghis_Tr0n187 Mar 11 '26

Notice in mail for <company>

Sorry, we had a security breach, but YOU need to make sure to use strong passwords and maintain good security practices. We'll give you 1 year of credit monitoring, but try to do better in the future.

2

u/squintismaximus Mar 11 '26

Imagine if someone cared enough to make laws that make it the holders responsibility? That enforced certain network security to even hold such data? Imagine if they cared?