this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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There are only 1 billion SSNs possible with 9 digits, and at most around 350M living people who have them (the US population). This breach is international but SSN is a US thing.
9 digit social security number specifically might be, but a unique number tied to you that is often used as identification when it really shouldn't isn't, it's a shitshow that has been implemented in many countries around the world.
The Finnish version was called an SSN originally for example, though now its a "henkilötunnus", personal identity code.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identification_number
And not all 9-digit numbers are used, so there are fewer than a billion. It sucks when organizations store them because the search space is so small it's relatively easy to unhash them in a stolen database.
A lot of businesses use the last 4 digits separately for some purposes, which means that even if it's salted, you are only getting 110,000 total options, which is trivial to run through.
Do TINs overlap with SSNs? Because businesses and non-citizen taxpayers have TINs instead of SSNs, but they're used just the same.