The Salvation Army notifies victims of data breach that leaked Social Security Numbers 

The Salvation Army is notifying victims of a May 2025 data breach that leaked names, Social Security Numbers, and driver’s license numbers. Ransomware group Chaos claimed responsibility for the data breach at the end of May. The Salvation Army has not verified Chaos’ claim.

Commenting on this is Paul Bischoff, Consumer Privacy Advocate at Comparitech

“Chaos is a ransomware gang that first surfaced in 2021 but didn’t start claiming victims on its data leak site until March 2025. The group attacks both individuals and organizations through drive-by-downloads and phishing. It employs a double-extortion scheme in which organizations are extorted both for stolen data and to restore infected systems. Chaos has taken credit for three other confirmed ransomware attacks and made eight more unconfirmed claims that haven’t been publicly acknowledged by the targeted organizations.”

“In 2025 to date, Comparitech researchers have logged 632 confirmed ransomware attacks compromising 28.8 million records. The average ransom demand is $1.7 million. The Salvation Army is not the first ransomware attack on a charitable organization. Earlier this year, Welthungerhilfe, a German non-profit aid organization, received a $2.15 million ransom demand from ransomware group Rhysida. We’ve recorded another 3,955 unconfirmed attack claims made by ransomware groups this year so far that haven’t been acknowledged by the targeted organizations.”

This is particularly bad as the victims in this case are kind of vulnerable and are more likely to be victims of secondary attacks that are launched by threat actors. Hopefully these victims are in a place where they are not taken advantage of.

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The IT Nerd

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading