Pete Hegseth's Driver's License Among Things Stolen During Breach: Report

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was reportedly a victim of a massive hack that resulted in the thefts of 153 million driver's licenses.

A screenshot of Hegseth's license page began circulating online on August 31. No personal information on the license is in the screenshot, though a link on the photo suggests that Hegseth's record could be purchased for $100.

Per the security blog KrebsOnSecurity, led by Brian Krebs, the breach appeared on the Russian cybercrime forum "Exploit," where a service called "Nexus" offered the license information for hundreds of millions of people for a $100 fee. Nexus claimed they had siphoned the information for over a year from a "major identify verification company." IDScan.net put out a statement on September 4 saying they were aware they had been hacked.

An FBI assistant director's information was also stolen in the hack. The FBI immediately confirmed they were looking into the breach while the Pentagon acknowledged it was "aware of these reports and is evaluating them."

Nexus was immediately shut down after Krebs reported on it, but the perpetrators behind the hack have not confirmed they deleted the data they stole. Lawfare Media suggested the perpetrators are waiting until the furor dies down to try and sell the information again.

“This data set will continue to have massive value to the cybercriminal community for many years, and we are likely to see this service or one very similar appear again on the darknet,” Krebs told TIME.

It's unknown who else has been affected at the time of publication, but Krebs, whose data was also in the breach, was able to verify that some people who use the rental car service Hertz appeared in the breach.

IDScan.net advertises that it provides security services for Hertz, Target, Fedex, Motorola Solutions, financial services company Jack Henry, Caesars Entertainment, GameStop and other companies.

Security experts said the breach is significantly more dangerous than the average information hack, as a photo ID can be used to make identity theft much easier.

James E. Lee, President of the Identity Theft Resource Center, told TIME that a photo ID can help thieves open new lines of credit and make other identify theft schemes harder to immediately detect.

Furthermore, the theft of a photo ID makes it more difficult for those affected to secure themselves moving forward.

"You can reissue a new password but not a new face," security expert Edgar Whitley told the publication.