Security News > 2022 > June > SSNDOB Market domains seized, identity theft “brokerage” shut down
SSN is short for Social Security Number, which is effectively a US national ID number, and DOB translates into date of birth.
Unfortunately knowing someone's SSN is a good starting point if you're an identity thief, because it can often be combined with other personal information to get past identity checks.
In theory at least, you can keep trimming the probability down until it's as good as certain that the only way someone could provide all the data you're requesting is if they were the true owner of the the SSN they presented to start with.
As you can imagine, data breaches where crooks get hold of personal data that includes SSNs rarely come away with just those SSNs, given that few database files include a list of SSNs and no other data at all.
Thus the name SSNDOB Market that you see in the headline - an online data bazaar that wanted visitors to know that it sold at least matched-up SSNs and DOBs, along with other personally identifiable information.
The DOJ hasn't arrested the suspected operators of the SSNDOB Market with the help of law enforcement partners in Latvia and Cyprus, it did get a court warrant allowing it to take over the server names used by the crooked data brokers.