U.S. Defense Secretary's driver's license offered for sale on the dark web

A digital copy of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's driver's license reportedly appeared for sale on the dark web as part of a massive identity-data scandal in the United States.

KrebsOnSecurity reported that the records were offered through a service called Nexus. The platform allegedly held more than 153 million driver's license records belonging to people in the United States and Canada. It also reportedly had data from more than 10 million identity cards, over 3 million travel documents or international identity cards, and at least 579,000 health cards.

The service was promoted on Aug. 31 by a newly created account on the Russian-language cybercrime forum Exploit. Those behind Nexus claimed the information came from an active cyberattack against an identity-verification company serving large businesses. KrebsOnSecurity's review pointed to a possible connection with Louisiana-based IDScan.net, which says its technology supports more than 21 million identity checks each month at over 20,000 locations worldwide.

IDScan.net said it had begun investigating but had not reached a firm conclusion about the nature or scope of any leak. The FBI's New Orleans office also opened an official investigation into the possible breach. KrebsOnSecurity said the database included driver's license information belonging to a senior FBI official.

To test whether the database was genuine, KrebsOnSecurity searched for records belonging to more than 12 people and found driver's licenses for nine of them. Timestamps matched dates when some individuals had traveled or used their licenses for identity verification. Some records reportedly included the front and back of licenses, as well as infrared and ultraviolet scans. Shortly after the report was published, the Nexus website went offline.