Real or Fake? Large-Scale Validation of Identity Leaks

Abstract

On the Internet, criminal hackers frequently leak identity data on a massive scale. Subsequent criminal activities, such as identity theft and misuse, put Internet users at risk. Leak checker services enable users to check whether their personal data has been made public. However, automatic crawling and identification of leak data is error-prone for different reasons. Based on a dataset of more than 180 million leaked identity records, we propose a software system that identifies and validates identity leaks to improve leak checker services. Furthermore, we present a proficient assessment of leak data quality and typical characteristics that distinguish valid and invalid leaks.