A hacker is allegedly selling 153 million stolen driver's license records through a site called Nexus.
Nexus is described as a mysterious marketplace specializing in trafficking license data. The scale of the alleged theft is striking: 153 million records is a figure equivalent to nearly half the U.S. population. Adding an odd twist, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly turned up in the database himself. It is not yet clear how the data was originally obtained or which agency or business was the source.
Driver's licenses bundle a name, address, birthdate, and photo in one document, making them prime material for identity theft and account-takeover fraud. A breach this size, if verified, would dwarf most state DMV incidents on record and raises fresh questions about how bulk driver data ends up exposed in the first place. That a sitting cabinet official's own record apparently leaked out is a reminder that no one is walled off from this kind of exposure.
Until Nexus and its dataset are independently verified, treat the nine-figure number the same way you'd treat any dark-web listing: with real skepticism.