The world’s largest database of naughty and nice background investigations was compromised by hackers just days before Christmas, sources close to Santa Claus report.
“It’s usually public record if someone has been naughty or nice,” said identity protection specialist Rudolph Klein. “But the information used by the special investigating elves can be pieced together and used for blackmail and identity theft. Santa has considerable surveillance resources and the ability to get down the tiniest chimneys and around the gruffest doormen. This is a lot of data. You better watch out.”
Santa’s list — which was rumored to contain the name of every boy and girl, their special wish for Christmas, and an ongoing scoring rubric of naughty or nice metrics — had been upgraded recently from a scroll of fine parchment to an online database in an effort to save the North Pole thousands of hours of calligraphy and millions of gallons of glitter ink.
While the OPM breach, and Yahoo and Sony account hacks affected millions of people, the Santa hack has the ability to influence billions, sources say.
Though Santa had previously claimed to only monitor those who truly believe in the spirit of Christmas, as details unfold about the compromised information it has become clear that Santa has continued to surveil children long after they started emailing their parents Amazon wish lists and telling other children on the playground that Santa wasn’t real, a worry for some privacy activists.
“Jesus Christ,” said NSA director Adm. Michael S. Rogers. “Santa Claus? He’s knows when I’ve been sleeping, he knows when I’m awake. It’s a horrible OPSEC vulnerability, and now everyone on the dark web knows the details.”
Santa has offered those included in the data hack one year of free credit monitoring, a tin of butter cookies, and extra time on his lap.
“Having this kind of information and disinformation floating around this close to Christmas Eve could have a considerable input on the outcome of Christmas morning,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
“We’re looking into foreign governments as well as non-state actors. At this time, we have assurances from the Secret Service that both the president and president-elect are safely on the ‘nice’ list, but many will attempt to convince you that they’re naughty.”
Via The DuffelBlog