Comment by mellavora

SSNs are generated by a not very secret algorithm. They were explicitly designed to be public information.

You don't need a data leak to get someone's SSN.

Also, malicious actors are almost never targeting you specifically. It is enough for them to

1) choose a birthdate

2) generate all SSNs associated with that birthdate

3) get all employment/salary histories accessible with that info.

4) scan the list for interesting tagets

5) ...

6) profit