FBI Probes Service Selling 153M+ Drivers Licenses

On August 31, a confidential alert reached KrebsOnSecurity regarding an illicit service on the Russian cybercrime forum Exploit, offering access to digital scans of identity documents of over 170 million individuals in North America. Intrigued by the prospect of obtaining a Virginia driver's license for free, the alert source directed the author to Nexus, an emerging identity theft service claiming to possess more than 153 million driver's licenses from the U.S. and Canada, alongside additional identification documents.

Nexus asserts that the license images originate from a breach at a major identity verification company, which serves Fortune 500 clients. The service offers free previews of the records for purchase, with redacted personal information displayed, when available. Within the span of 24 hours, the number of available driver's license records surged by nearly 400,000, indicative of fresh stolen data being continuously uploaded to Nexus.

After tracing the source by correlating timestamps on stolen license images with their owners' ID scans, primarily at Hertz rental counters and Planet13 dispensaries, it was discovered that both entities utilize identity verification services from Louisiana-based idscan.net. The idscan.net technology scans IDs using infrared and ultraviolet light.

Following the publication of the story, the Nexus identity theft service website abruptly disappeared from the dark web, replaced with a plain text message stating, "This service is no longer available."