IDScan has confirmed that hackers stole driver’s licenses from its cloud systems. A notice on the company’s website is its first acknowledgement of a breach. A week earlier it had said only that it was investigating an incident and had not yet confirmed an intrusion.
The stolen data includes full names and driver’s license numbers, plus identity numbers from other government-issued documents such as passports. IDScan is based in Louisiana, and its customers range from entertainment venues to cannabis dispensaries, which use it to check the identity documents of the people they serve.
How the story broke
Independent cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs reported the breach first, on or around September 1. IDScan says it “received information” about a claim of a hack the same day.
Krebs said he had been pointed to a dark web site that let anyone search the driver’s license details of more than 150 million people in the United States and Canada, photos included. He checked his own record to confirm the data was real. A security researcher did the same with his own details for the report. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was also in the database.
TechCrunch, which carried the follow-up, said the Pentagon told it last week that it knew of the suspected breach. An FBI spokesperson said the bureau was investigating too. An earlier report had described the intrusion as a year-long hack.
What IDScan says
The company said its investigation is ongoing. Its notice states that “though full access to the information required payment.” TechCrunch read that as likely a reference to a money demand from the hackers for the full cache. IDScan is posting the notice, it said, to alert potentially affected people.
It has not said how many individuals are affected. Its website says it holds over 150 million driver’s license records. The company did not answer TechCrunch’s questions, including whether the hackers sent a ransom demand not to release the data.
