E-Verify’s “SSN Lock” is Nothing of the Sort

One of the most-read advice columns on this site is a 2018 piece called “Plant Your Flag, Mark Your Territory,” which tried to impress upon readers the importance of creating accounts at websites like those at the Social Security Administration, the IRS and others before crooks do it for you. A key concept here is that these services only allow one account per Social Security number — which for better or worse is the de facto national identifier in the United States. But KrebsOnSecurity recently discovered that this is not the case with all federal government sites built to help you manage your identity online.


A reader who was recently the victim of unemployment insurance fraud said he was told he should create an account at the Department of Homeland Security‘s myE-Verify website, and place a lock on his Social Security number (SSN) to minimize the chances that ID thieves might abuse his identity for employment fraud in the future.



DHS’s myE-Verify homepage.



According to the website, roughly 600,000 employers at over 1.9 million hiring sites use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of new employees. E-Verify’s consumer-facing portal myE-Verify lets users track and manage employment inquiries made through the E-Verify system. It also features a “Self Lock” designed to prevent the misuse of one’s SSN in ..

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