Technology
HR firm confirms 4M records exposed in major hack
Data breaches have become alarmingly common and costly, putting sensitive information at risk. In fact, the number of data breaches in the United States jumped from 447 in 2012 to over 3,200 in 2023.
Even firms entrusted with managing personal information are not immune. The latest example is VeriSource Services, a Texas-based employee benefits and HR administration provider that experienced a major data breach.
The personal information of about 4 million people was exposed in this incident, and it took the company over a year to fully assess its impact, a critical failure for an organization specializing in data management, employee enrollment and HR support services that clients rely on to safeguard their most sensitive information.
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An illustration of a hacker at work (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What happened at VeriSource?
VeriSource discovered the breach Feb. 28, 2024, when it noticed unusual activity disrupting some of its systems. The company later determined an unknown attacker had gained unauthorized access around Feb. 27, 2024, stealing data on or about that date.
Somehow, it took VeriSource over a year to determine the full scope of the breach, including the identification all individuals who had their information exposed.
According to the investigation, this was a criminal cyberattack carried out by external threat actors (hackers), as opposed to an insider mishandling data. The perpetrators accessed sensitive personal records stored by VeriSource. In a sample notice filed with state authorities, VeriSource reported that the compromised information included individuals’ full names, mailing addresses, dates of birth, gender and Social Security numbers (via BleepingComputer).
A person working on their laptop (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
200 MILLION SOCIAL MEDIA RECORDS LEAKED IN MAJOR X DATA BREACH
Impact on affected individuals
For individuals whose data was exposed, this breach poses real risks. Information like your Social Security number, birth date and address can be misused for identity theft, such as opening fraudulent accounts or filing false tax returns in your name. Even beyond financial fraud, having such personal data in the wrong hands can lead to targeted phishing scams.
What worries me the most is the delay in fully notifying everyone affected. VeriSource had sent out preliminary breach notices to about 55,000 people in May 2024 and then to another 112,000 people in September 2024. However, those early notifications covered only a small fraction of the approximately 4 million victims eventually identified. This means the majority of affected individuals did not learn of the breach until the final notification wave in April 2025, more than a year after the data was actually compromised.
We reached out to VeriSource for a comment but did not hear back before our deadline.
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A person working on a laptop (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
HERTZ DATA BREACH EXPOSES CUSTOMER INFORMATION
5 ways to protect yourself after the VeriSource data breach
If you think you were affected by the VeriSource data breach or just want to be cautious, here are some steps you can take right now to stay safe from the data breach:
1. Consider a personal data removal service: VeriSource hackers have access to your name, Social Security number, mailing address and more, which they can easily use against you. The more exposed your personal information is online, the easier it is for scammers to scam you. After the VeriSource breach, consider removing your information from public databases and people-search sites. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.
2. Safeguard against identity theft and use identity theft protection: Hackers now have access to high-value information from the VeriSource breach, including Social Security numbers. This makes you a prime target for identity theft. You can freeze your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals. Signing up for identity theft protection gives you 24/7 monitoring, alerts for unusual activity and support if your identity is stolen. See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft.
3. Set up fraud alerts: Requesting fraud alerts notifies creditors that they need extra verification before issuing credit in your name. You can request fraud alerts through any one of the three major credit bureaus. They’ll notify the others. This adds another layer of protection without completely freezing access to credit.
4. Monitor your credit reports: Check your credit reports regularly through AnnualCreditReport.com, where you can access free reports from each bureau once per yearor more frequently if you’re concerned about fraud. Spotting unauthorized accounts early can prevent larger financial damage.
5. Be wary of social engineering attacks and use strong antivirus software: Hackers may use stolen details like names or birthdates from breaches in phone scams or fake customer service calls designed to trick you into revealing more sensitive info. Never share personal details over unsolicited calls or emails. Also, never click on unexpected links or attachments in emails, texts or messages because they may contain malware or lead to phishing sites designed to steal your information.
The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.
HACKERS USING MALWARE TO STEAL DATA FROM USB FLASH DRIVES
Kurt’s key takeaway
What stands out in the VeriSource breach isn’t just the scale, but the silence. When a company sits on breach data for over a year, regardless of intent, it erodes trust in systems designed to protect workers. These aren’t just compliance failures. They’re human ones. Four million people had their most sensitive information exposed, and for many of them, the warning came far too late. This should be a moment of reckoning for how organizations define responsibility after a breach. A timely response isn’t just good PR. It’s a baseline expectation. And if it takes over a year to realize the full scope of a cyberattack, maybe the incident isn’t the only vulnerability worth addressing.
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When Oregon resident Isabelle Reksopuro heard Google was gobbling up public land to fuel its data centers in her home state, she didn’t initially know what to believe. “There’s a lot of misinformation about data centers,” she said. “Google has denied taking that land.”
Technically, she explains, The Dalles, a city near the Washington state border, sought to reclaim that land, “and Google is just a big, unnamed power user.” The city had in fact asked for ownership of a 150-acre portion of Mount Hood National Forest, claiming it needs access to Mount Hood’s watershed to meet municipal needs as its population — 16,010 as of the 2020 census — grows. But critics, including environmentalists, say the city is trying to secure more water for Google, which has a sprawling data center campus in The Dalles that already consumes about one-third of the city’s water supply.
This controversy made Reksopuro curious about the backlash to data centers being built in other communities. So Reksopuro, a student at the University of Washington who studies the connections between tech and public policy, decided to map it out. Using information collected by Epoch AI and data scraped from legislation on data centers, she built an interactive map tracking AI policy around the world. She designed it to be simple enough for anyone to use. “I wanted it to be something that my younger sisters could play through and explore to understand what are the data centers in the area and what’s actually being done about it,” Reksopuro said. She hoped to shift their opinions that way, “instead of like, through TikTok.”
Four times a day, the map searches for new sources and checks them against the existing database Reksopuro built out. “Once it does that, it will write a new summary, add it to the news feed, and populate it on the sidebar,” she said. “I wanted it to be self-updating, since I’m also a student.”
Reksopuro isn’t against data centers, but she thinks tech giants benefit from a lack of transparency around data center policies. “Right now, it’s this really opaque thing — and all of a sudden, there’s a facility,” she said. “I think that if people knew about data centers beforehand, it would give them leverage. They would be able to negotiate: ask for job training programs, tax revenue, environmental monitoring, things to improve their community.”
UCF commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield (University of Central Florida via Storyful)
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Microsoft Edge is adding a new feature that will allow its Copilot AI chatbot to gather information from all of your open tabs. When you start a conversation with Copilot, you can ask the chatbot questions about what’s in your tabs, compare the products you’re looking at, summarize your open articles, and more.
In its announcement, Microsoft says you can “select which experiences you want or leave off the ones you don’t.” The company is retiring Copilot Mode as well, which could similarly draw information from your tabs but offered some agentic features, like the ability to book a reservation on your behalf. Microsoft has since folded these agentic capabilities into its “Browse with Copilot” tool.
Several other AI features are coming to Edge, including an AI-powered “Study and Learn” mode that can turn the article you’re looking at into a study session or interactive quiz. There’s a new tool that turns your tabs into AI-powered podcasts as well, similar to what you’d find on NotebookLM, and an AI writing assistant that will pop up when you start entering text on a webpage.
You can also give Copilot permission to access your browsing history to provide more “relevant, high-quality answers,” according to Microsoft. Copilot in Edge on desktop and mobile will come with “long-term memory” as well, which can tailor its responses based on your previous conversations. And, when you open up a new tab, you’ll see a redesigned page that combines chat, search, and web navigation, along with the Journeys feature, which uses AI to organize your browsing history into categories that you can revisit.
Meanwhile, an update to Edge’s mobile app will allow you to share your screen with Copilot and talk through the questions about what you’re seeing. Microsoft says you’ll see “clear visual cues” when Copilot is active, “so you know when it’s taking an action, helping, listening, or viewing.”
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