Hackers Had a Live Feed of Every ID Verification Company Scanned for over a Year

Let's get one thing straight: the only thing less secure than your average password is the entire concept of digital identity verification in 2026. This latest debacle, covered in the usual no-holds-barred fashion over at Techdirt, proves that we have built a multi-billion dollar house of cards on a foundation of "trust me, bro." The sheer audacity of a company whose entire business model is "we keep your data safe" getting hacked—and staying hacked—for over a year is the kind of irony that would be funny if it weren't so terrifying. It's not just a breach; it's a complete and total failure of the fundamental promise of the industry. We've handed over the keys to the kingdom to a bunch of people who apparently leave the front door wide open. The real kicker here isn't just the hack itself, but the duration. A year is a lifetime in the digital world. That isn't a sophisticated, one-day smash-and-grab. That's a long-term residency. The hackers weren't just in and out; they set up shop, built a nice little nest, and watched the feed daily like it was their favorite soap opera. This tells us that the initial intrusion was likely long forgotten, the alert fatigue had set in, and the security team was probably busy putting out fires in other, less critical parts of the business. It's a damning indictment of the "move fast and break things" culture that prioritizes feature rollouts over basic security hygiene. And what are the consequences? A slap on the wrist, a class-action lawsuit that pays out pennies to consumers, and a small fine that's a rounding error in the company's budget. In the open source world, we have a culture of disclosure, transparency, and forking when a project goes bad. In the commercial sector, they've just rebranded it as "onboarding." We need to start treating these companies the way we treat buggy open source libraries: with deep suspicion, constant auditing, and the willingness to patch them out of our systems the moment they show a critical vulnerability. Until then, this is just the cost of doing business in the digital age. Source: [http://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/03/hackers-had-a-live-feed-of-every-id-this-verification-company-scanned-for-over-a-year/](http://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/03/hackers-had-a-live-feed-of-every-id-this-verification-company-scanned-for-over-a-year/)