IDScan offers free credit monitoring after driver's license leak linked to FBI investigation

Engadget reported on September 10 that IDScan.net, an ID fraud protection platform, announced the offer as a make good for customers impacted by a recent data security incident. The company said in a statement that while its investigation is ongoing, it determined an unauthorized third party may have accessed and/or copied certain customer information stored within accounts on the IDScan.net cloud. The affected data may have included full names and driver's license or other government-issued identification numbers, according to the statement.

IDScan.net said full access to the information required payment, but it is still contacting people potentially impacted and providing free credit monitoring and identity protection services. The company also said it is cooperating with federal law enforcement on their investigation. Engadget noted that the company has not publicly connected this breach to a report last week that its data was a possible source for a new dark web marketplace selling scans of IDs online, though the timing raises that possibility.

TechRadar reported the same day that a data leak of 153 million US driver's licenses was said to have been shared on a Russian cybercrime forum, prompting an FBI investigation. The report said US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was among those apparently discovered in the stolen data. Security researcher Brian Krebs identified the leak, which included his own data, as originating from a hack of an identity verification service, according to TechRadar. Louisiana-based IDScan provided ID verification for companies including FedEx and Hertz car hire, the report said.

TechRadar reported that the data was shared on a Russian forum called Exploit, described as a long-established online community of cybercriminals. The identity theft service Nexus apparently scrubbed its existence from the dark web after news of the leak. The archive of recently collected personal data included not only US driver's licenses but also a further 1.1 million driver's licenses from Canada, 10 million identification cards, three million travel documents and international IDs, and 579,000 medical cards, according to Krebs' investigation cited by TechRadar. Nexus allowed records to be previewed before purchase with pertinent information redacted, and customer photos were displayed if available, according to the report.

Krebs' own driver's license and his mother's were in the collection, TechRadar reported. Both licenses were used for a car hire, which Krebs traced to Hertz, and others affected by the leak had also used the service, which has used New Orleans-based IDScan for identity verification, according to the report. IDScan says it performs 21 million verifications a month, TechRadar reported. The company had not issued a statement on the matter at the time of TechRadar's report, and its marketing and operations leader, Jillian Kossman, told Krebs: "At this point I'm not able to share any additional information, but the updates you have provided have been welcome, and helpful to our team's investigation."

The two reports differ on IDScan's public response. Engadget reported that IDScan.net had announced free credit monitoring and identity protection services and said it was cooperating with federal law enforcement. TechRadar reported that the company was yet to issue a statement on the matter, while relaying Kossman's comment to Krebs. Engadget also said it had asked IDScan.net to comment on the possible connection between its security incident and Nexus.

Krebs reported on September 1 that Nexus was selling scans of over 153 million US and Canadian driver's licenses and millions of other ID documents, according to Engadget. Nexus reportedly shuttered ahead of an FBI investigation into the marketplace, and Krebs' report cited IDScan as a possible source for the ID documents it was selling, Engadget reported. TechRadar reported that Krebs was alerted to the data on August 31, 2026, and that the data was still being added to, increasing by nearly 400,000 records before his September 1 investigation was published. Since then, Nexus appeared to have vanished along with the data, according to TechRadar.