If you’re reading this, something worth knowing just happened. This alert is sponsored by Coveron. Get my exclusive deal: 71% off, starting at $4.36/month.
TODAY’S TECH ALERT
License to spill
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
🤯 WOW! You handed your license to a rental car clerk. Seconds later, a copy landed with a company you’ve never heard of. Crooks are advertising 153 million U.S. and Canadian license scans on a dark web market. You can cancel a stolen credit card. You can’t cancel your face.
The Short Version: A middleman you never chose stored your ID, and now it’s for sale. Watching only your SSN won’t catch what comes next. Steps below.
📖 Read time: 2 minutes
Think about the last time you handed over your driver’s license. Picking up a rental car. Grabbing a package. Buying a bottle of wine.
Did you ever wonder where that scan went? I didn’t either.
It went to a middleman. IDScan.net makes the scanners businesses use to check your ID, and it confirmed hackers got in on Sept. 4.
The numbers are staggering
Sellers on a dark web market are advertising more than 153 million license scans, plus millions of passports and ID cards. Think about that for a moment. It’s unbelievable, I know.
IDScan.net confirms full names and ID numbers were exposed. It hasn’t confirmed the crooks’ totals.
Its clients include Hertz, FedEx and Target. Millions of ordinary people were exposed by a vendor they couldn’t name. Nice.
🪪 You can’t cancel your face
Lose a credit card, and you cancel it in five minutes. Your license number? Your face? Those don’t reset.
That’s the whole data economy in one breach. Your life gets copied, stored and sold by companies you never chose.
Old-school identity protection watched one thing: your Social Security number. You need much more than that today.
🛡️ Watching your SSN is so 2016
Today, crooks mix and match. A license number here, a phone number there, a leaked email password, a laptop with malware. One number isn’t the whole picture anymore.
That’s why I like Coveron. It watches the whole crime scene:
Criminal record monitoring, so you hear about it from an alert, not a traffic stop
Malware alerts when the leak is from your own device
Real-time dark web scans for your email, U.S. phone numbers and SSN
Alerts that tell you exactly what to do next
Scam loss reimbursement, up to your plan’s limits
Up to $2 million in identity theft coverage
Here’s your to-do list. Freeze your credit at Equifax, Experian, TransUnion and Innovis. It’s free.
Then put Coveron on watch.
📩 Send this to someone who hands over their license without a second thought.
Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando
Disclosure: This alert is sponsored by Coveron. I only partner with brands that I personally use or believe provide significant value to my community.