What Can Someone Do With Your Social Security Number? (2026)
Quick answer: A Social Security number alone is not enough for a criminal to steal your identity — they also need your name, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, and address. But your SSN is the hardest piece of information for a criminal to obtain. If they have it, they likely have the rest. With a complete set of personal information, criminals can open credit cards, take out loans, file fraudulent tax returns, and more. Freezing your credit and getting an IRS PIN are the two most effective countermeasures.
Your SSN Sells for $2 on the Dark Web
A stolen Social Security number sells for as little as $2 on dark web markets. That price might seem shockingly low for something you’ve been told to guard your entire life — but there’s a reason.
Years of massive data breaches have flooded criminal markets with SSNs. The National Public Data breach alone exposed 2.7 billion records in 2024. Supply is high, which drives the price down.
But here’s the important part: a Social Security number by itself is not enough to steal your identity. A criminal cannot call your bank and open a credit card with just an SSN. They need additional pieces of information — and with those additional pieces, the value of your stolen data goes up dramatically.
A complete identity package — SSN plus name, date of birth, address, and mother’s maiden name — sells for $15 to $200 depending on the victim’s credit score and data completeness.
What Criminals Need Besides Your SSN
To commit most forms of identity theft, a criminal needs your SSN plus three or four additional pieces of information:
- Your full legal name
- Your date of birth
- Your mother’s maiden name
- Your home address
This is why the majority of identity theft is actually perpetrated by family members. Think about it — who in your life has all of this information? A close family member, your tax preparer, possibly your dentist’s office. Hopefully nobody else. Seniors are especially vulnerable because their SSNs are paired with established credit histories and savings — see our guide on how to protect seniors from identity theft for specific steps.
If a criminal has your SSN along with these other data points, they have everything they need to do serious damage.
How Your SSN Gets Exposed
Your Social Security number can end up in criminal hands through both legitimate and illegitimate channels.
Legitimate Exposures (That Become Risks)
Your tax preparer’s inbox. There’s a decent chance your SSN is sitting in plain text in someone’s email inbox right now — your accountant, HR department, or even your own sent folder.
Data breaches at companies that store it. Even if you were careful about who you shared your SSN with, the companies you shared it with may not have been careful about protecting it. The MOVEit file-sharing system hack, for example, compromised data from organizations that used the platform to transfer sensitive documents securely.
Medical and dental offices. A receptionist might ask for your SSN to bill your insurance company. In most cases, they don’t actually need it — there are other ways to bill insurance successfully. If a secretary asks for your SSN, tell them they don’t need it.
Scams Designed to Steal Your SSN
Fake rental applications. You find an attractively priced, below-market rental on Craigslist. The application requires your SSN. Except the listing is fake — the scammers are just extracting as much personal information as they can.
Fraudulent job offers. A job offer that seems too good to be true, with an above-market salary doing exactly what you love — after a suspiciously short five-minute interview. The “onboarding” paperwork asks for your SSN, and sometimes even money. You end up out of both.
Phishing attacks. A link to “paypals.com” or “PayPal” spelled with a capital I instead of a lowercase L. You land on a convincing fake site that asks for your SSN, driver’s license, or passport upload. The criminals now have everything.
What Someone Can Actually Do With Your Stolen SSN
Once a criminal has your SSN and enough supporting information, here is what they can do:
Open Credit Cards and Loans in Your Name
This is the most common form of identity theft. With your SSN, name, date of birth, and address, a criminal can apply for credit cards and loans. You won’t know until the bills start arriving — or until a debt collector calls about accounts you never opened.
How to prevent it: Freeze your credit at all three major bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. A credit freeze blocks anyone from opening new credit in your name. It’s free, doesn’t affect your credit score, and takes about 10 minutes per bureau.
Open Bank Accounts in Your Name
Criminals can open checking and savings accounts to use as drop accounts for money laundering or fraudulent deposits.
How to prevent it: Freeze your file at ChexSystems, the consumer reporting agency used by banks when opening new accounts.
File a Fraudulent Tax Return
A criminal can file a tax return using your SSN and claim your refund before you file. You won’t know until the IRS rejects your legitimate return because “one has already been filed.”
How to prevent it: Get an IRS Identity Protection PIN. Once set up, anyone filing taxes in your name — including you — must provide this PIN. This effectively blocks fraudulent tax filings. The IRS issues a new PIN each year. This is recommended for everyone, not just identity theft victims.
Apply for Unemployment Benefits
Criminals can file unemployment claims using your SSN. This was especially common during the pandemic-era benefit expansions, but it continues today.
How to prevent it: If this happens, notify the Department of Labor at the federal level and your state unemployment department at the state level immediately.
Commit Utilities Fraud
Criminals can open utility accounts — electric, gas, phone, internet — in your name, rack up bills, and disappear.
How to prevent it: Freeze your file at NCTUE (National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange) to reduce the likelihood of this happening.
Sell It on the Dark Web
Even if a criminal doesn’t use your SSN directly, they can sell it — along with your other personal information — on dark web marketplaces. From there, it circulates indefinitely and can be purchased by any number of bad actors.
How to monitor it: A dark web monitoring service scans criminal markets for your personal information and alerts you when it appears. This gives you the earliest possible warning to take protective action.
The Complete Protection Checklist
If your SSN has been exposed — or if you want to protect yourself proactively — take these steps:
- Freeze your credit at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion (free, 10 minutes each)
- Freeze your ChexSystems file to prevent fraudulent bank account openings
- Freeze your NCTUE file to prevent utilities fraud
- Get an IRS Identity Protection PIN to block fraudulent tax filings
- Stop sharing your SSN unless absolutely required — most medical offices and service providers don’t actually need it
- Never send your SSN in plain text over email
- Sign up for dark web monitoring through an identity theft protection service to get alerted when your information surfaces
- Keep your physical Social Security card in a safe — never carry it in your wallet
The Bottom Line
Your Social Security number might only sell for $2 on the dark web — but combined with a few other basic pieces of your personal information, it’s worth far more to criminals. The good news: freezing your credit, getting an IRS PIN, and monitoring the dark web are all free or inexpensive steps that dramatically reduce the damage a stolen SSN can cause.
If your SSN has already been compromised, follow our step-by-step identity theft recovery checklist. To understand the full scale of the problem, see the latest identity theft statistics.
Related: How to Freeze Your Credit | What Is the Dark Web? | How to Prevent Identity Theft | Best Identity Theft Protection Services | What To Do If Your Identity Is Stolen | Famous Identity Theft Cases | Senior Identity Theft Guide
