For $10K, They Got Sensitive Data on 50K Service Members

Personal information about active-duty US service members, from their net worth to the names of their children, is easy to buy online for as little as 12 cents per member, according to a new study. As former CIA officer Jeff Asher tells NBC News, "information on people that you don't want being approached by foreign intelligence services being reasonably easy to acquire is not a good situation." Researchers at Duke University were able to purchase phone numbers, addresses, health conditions, credit ratings, even information related to geographical areas for nearly 50,000 US service members from three data brokers for 12 cents to 32 cents per person, or just over $10,000 total.

Their study, funded by West Point and published Monday, notes more than 500 data broker websites advertised information on US service members, with some selling bulk data purchases for as little as $0.01 per record, per Axios. "Cheating on your spouse, financial issues, mental health concerns can get your security clearances revoked. Those things are all in the data," Maj. Jessica Dawson, a research scientist at West Point's Army Cyber Institute, tells Politico. "It just takes the right combination of content and attackers to start trying to exploit that information." Says study author Justin Sherman: "If researchers are able to purchase this, acting in ethical ways, subject to university ethics processes, it would be very easy for a foreign adversary to do so."

A July report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence noted commercially available information "offers intelligence benefits to our adversaries," per NBC. This study found many brokers "lacked controls on who could purchase the data," per Axios. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) each authored bills aimed at protecting service member's data from foreign adversaries this year, though neither have become law. Congress has in fact been unable to pass legislation related to general data privacy. The research is "a sobering wake-up call for policy makers that the data broker industry is out of control," Wyden tells NBC. "We must act in the interest of national security and protect those who defend our nation," adds Cassidy. (More service members stories.)