Credit monitoring company Equifax has been hit by a high-tech heist that exposed the social security numbers and other sensitive information about 143 million Americans.
Now the unwitting victims have to worry about the threat of having their identities stolen.
The Atlanta-based company, one of three major US credit bureaus, said on Thursday that "criminals" exploited a US website application to access files between mid-May and July.
The theft obtained consumers' names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some cases, driver's licence numbers.
The purloined data can be enough for crooks to hijack the identities of people whose credentials were stolen through no fault of their own, potentially wreaking havoc on their lives.
Equifax said its core credit-reporting databases do not appear to have been breached.
"On a scale of one to 10, this is a 10 in terms of potential identity theft," said Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan.
"Credit bureaus keep so much data about us that affects almost everything we do."
Lenders rely on the information collected by the credit bureaus to help them decide whether to approve financing for homes, cars and credit cards.
Credit checks are even sometimes done by employers when deciding whom to hire for a job.
Equifax discovered the hack July 29 but waited until Thursday to warn consumers.
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