FBI Probes Service Promoting 153M+ Drivers Licenses – Krebs on Safety

A brand new id theft service launched on the darkish internet this week is promoting digital scans of greater than 153 million drivers licenses from individuals in america and Canada. Primarily based on interviews with people whose licenses can be found for buy on this service, it seems to be siphoning pictures collected by a widely-used id verification firm based mostly in Louisiana. KrebsOnSecurity additionally has realized that the New Orleans area workplace of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the moment launched an official inquiry into the supply of the photographs.

On Monday, Aug. 31, a supply alerted KrebsOnSecurity to a service marketed by a brand new consumer on the Russian cybercrime discussion board Exploit, providing entry to digital scans of id paperwork on greater than 170 million individuals in North America. The supply introduced it to my consideration as a result of the proprietor of this id theft service provided my Virginia drivers license as a free pattern of their preliminary gross sales thread on Exploit.

The service, dubbed Nexus, claims to have greater than 153 million drivers licenses for individuals in america and Canada, in addition to greater than 10 million identification playing cards; greater than three million journey paperwork and/or worldwide IDs; and a minimum of 579,000 medical playing cards.

A fast go searching Nexus finds they’re probably not exaggerating about that 153 million quantity: Working a clean search in Nexus (with no search parameters entered) returns roughly 11.5 million pages of outcomes, with roughly 15 outcomes displayed per web page. It consists of paperwork from individuals in each Canada and america, however the bulk of those data are on Individuals: looking for simply Canadian drivers licenses returns roughly 1.1 million outcomes, with the most important focus from Ontario (473,673 data).

Curiously, the id data embody not solely drivers licenses but in addition marijuana dispensary playing cards. Among the data listing their “supply” as “CDL,” presumably brief for “business drivers license.” Different data carry the supply notation of “CAC,” which can consult with Frequent Entry Playing cards, authorities issued id playing cards that grant bodily entry to authorities buildings and safe rooms.

The individuals behind Nexus declare the license pictures are coming from an energetic breach at “a significant id verification firm” whose clients embody a number of Fortune 500 firms.

“We’ve been constantly exfiltrating new information for over a 12 months into our non-public database,” the service enthused in its introductory submit on Exploit. “Information can be found to preview earlier than buy with pertinent info redacted. Buyer photographs are displayed if out there.”

Certainly, over the previous 24 hours, the variety of drivers license data listed as out there in Nexus has elevated by almost 400,000, suggesting that freshly stolen license information is being harvested and uploaded to this service on a semi-regular foundation.

The document that options my drivers license consists of six picture information — three pairs of photographs of the license’s back and front — a primary picture scan — in addition to infrared and ultraviolet variations of the identical pictures. A date and timestamp is appended to every picture file, and the timestamp on my license scan corresponds to a date in June 2025 once I took a flight to the midwest United States to attend a household funeral.

Intent on discovering the supply of this information, KrebsOnSecurity requested greater than a dozen family and friends members for permission to seek for their licenses on this service. Every particular person whose license might be discovered (9 of them) confirmed having traveled on or very near the dates within the timestamps connected to their pictures. It’s unclear what timezone these timestamps are in, however from reviewing automotive rental data shared by a number of individuals who helped with this analysis, it seems the timezone is ready to Greenwich Imply Time (GMT).

At first, I believed the supply of the information might need one thing to do with airports. Nevertheless, that concept went out the window when it grew to become obvious there have been no passports on this information set. Additionally, solely a few of those that helped with this analysis mentioned they confirmed their drivers license on the airport on the day of their journey. One particular person whose license was in Nexus hadn’t flown in any respect lately, however was renting a automotive from Hertz for a number of months across the date of their timestamp.

Two of those that agreed to assist are federal staff who mentioned they shared different types of authorities identification when passing by airport safety. Nevertheless, these people every mentioned they shared their state-issued drivers licenses later that day when renting automobiles at their respective locations, and that each rented their vehicles from Hertz.

After discovering a observe in my calendar for the day of my June 2025 flight reminding me to deliver my passport, I remembered that I additionally by no means truly shared my drivers license once I went by safety at Reagan Nationwide Airport on that day as a result of I didn’t but have a Actual ID, a security-enhanced drivers license that’s now required by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) for all home journey. As an alternative, I confirmed the TSA agent my government-issued U.S. passport.

Right here’s the place it will get attention-grabbing: I used to be capable of finding my mom’s drivers license on this service as nicely, and the timestamps for her pictures are only a few seconds other than mine. That’s notable as a result of we each handed our licenses to the Hertz rental automotive consultant on the similar time.

In line with my mother, the one place she gave her drivers license to that day was the rental automotive firm, and if reminiscence serves that can be true for me. I don’t recall if the rental automotive consultant inserted our licenses into any form of machine, however I bear in mind they held onto them for a number of minutes behind the counter whereas we have been signing numerous kinds. KrebsOnSecurity sought remark from Hertz and can replace this story within the occasion they reply.

Zach Edwards is a widely known safety and privateness researcher who lately launched a service known as DecryptAds to assist individuals higher perceive how on-line advertisers are monitoring them. A scan of Edwards’s drivers license is on the market for buy on this id theft service, and Edwards mentioned the timestamp on his document corresponds to the center of a visit final month to Las Vegas for the annual DEFCON safety convention.

Edwards advised KrebsOnSecurity that though he didn’t hire a automotive in Vegas, he did hand over his license on the TSA checkpoint, at a marijuana dispensary in Vegas, and at his lodge (the Aria). However he mentioned the one a type of three that for certain scanned his ID in some form of gadget was the dispensary.

Edwards mentioned the dispensary he visited that day was Planet13, a multi-state chain with shops in California, Florida, Illinois and Nevada. In 2022, the New Orleans-based id supplier idscan.web printed a press release saying an unique id verification settlement with Planet13’s dispensaries nationally. IDScan says it processes ID verification for greater than 1,000 marijuana dispensaries in 19 U.S. states.

The “belief” web page of idscan.web states that the corporate supplies id verification companies for quite a few large manufacturers, together with Hertz, Goal, Fedex, Motorola Options, the monetary companies big Jack Henry, and Caesars Leisure. And as idscan.web’s personal documentation states, the expertise scans IDs with each infrared and ultraviolet gentle. Idscan.web says the corporate’s programs and expertise carry out greater than 21 million verifications month-to-month, at greater than 20,000 areas around the globe.

Contacted by KrebsOnSecurity, idscan.web mentioned it was investigating the matter, however the firm has not but shared an official assertion or a substantive reply to particular questions despatched through electronic mail.

“At this level I’m not capable of share any further info, however the updates you will have supplied have been welcome, and useful to our group’s investigation,” wrote Jillian Kossman, a advertising and marketing and operations chief at idscan.web.

Through the course of my analysis for this story, phrase apparently bought round to the FBI that I used to be poking on the obvious supply of this new id theft service’s information. In all probability they have been tipped off once I shared with a trusted supply that Nexus is also promoting the drivers license info for the assistant director of the FBI (I didn’t discover FBI Director Kash Patel’s license in Nexus).

Earlier this afternoon, I used to be added to a convention name with a half-dozen FBI brokers, together with senior leaders from the company’s cyber division. Throughout that decision, the FBI shared that earlier at the moment their New Orleans area workplace opened an official investigation into an obvious breach involving idscan.web.

Edwards mentioned that as extra in-person and on-line experiences require sharing drivers licenses, distributors who gather this delicate information must be held to the next normal.

“This episode ought to additional strengthen the resolve for people who find themselves preventing again in opposition to on-line ID schemes that are requiring numerous suppliers to ask for drivers licenses so as to entry companies beneath the guise of defending children,” Edwards advised KrebsOnSecurity. “These programs are placing delicate information into increasingly third celebration distributors, and we don’t have almost the oversight to make sure they’re secure.”

Larry Baldwin is principal intelligence researcher on the cybersecurity agency Cybera. Baldwin mentioned a back and front scan of his drivers license out there at Nexus accommodates timestamps that correspond to the date of a automotive rental from Hertz on a latest trip.

Baldwin mentioned the Nexus id theft service presents a number of severe safety and privateness threats, noting that state-issued drivers licenses are generally used as proof of 1’s id when opening new traces of credit score. Baldwin mentioned the service may additionally dangerously expose many individuals who don’t want to be discovered however who can not meaningfully change their look (or a minimum of not sufficient to idiot at the moment’s AI-based picture matching instruments).

This class of individuals, he mentioned, consists of these fleeing home violence, and even individuals who have been assigned a complete new life and id as a part of the federal authorities’s witness safety program, which is usually reserved for prison defendants in racketeering and conspiracy investigations who conform to cooperate with federal authorities.

“Simply when it looks as if we’re making some headway in enhancing authentication controls by drivers license verification programs, this occurs and the very factor these enhancements are depending on are compromised,” Baldwin mentioned.

Replace, 8:56 p.m. ET: Shortly after this story was printed, the Nexus id theft service web site vanished from the darkweb, changing its login web page with a plain textual content message that reads, “This service is not out there.”

This can be a doubtlessly fast-moving story. Any adjustments or updates might be famous right here together with a timestamp.