Find_SSNs - Search files for U.S. Social Security Numbers and Credit Card Numbers.

Caution!

Find_SSNs is not a silver bullet against identity theft. It helps individuals and organizations find sensitive numbers in files on computers. It does not secure the files it discovers. It may produce false positives and false negatives. It may miss some files altogether. Use it as part of a larger plan to identify and protect sensitive data stored on computers. Do not rely solely on it. Preventing sensitive data disclosures is a process. Organizations should have ongoing, recurring efforts in place to locate and secure sensitive data before a break-in occurs.

Download & Usage

Updates Released Monthly as the Social Security Administration Update Group Codes - Updated May 8th, 2008
Download Windows binary - Tested on Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000 and 98 - Digital Signature | Our PGP Keys
Download source code - Tested on Mac OSX, GNU\Linux, Windows Vista, FreeBSD 6.2 and OpenBSD 4.2 - Digital Signature | Our PGP Keys
Advanced Usage Instructions - How to customize Find_SSNs at run-time.
Screenshots - Screenshots of actual usage on various computers.
Sample Batch Script for Windows Users - Automate Find_SSNs with simple Windows batch files.
An Apple Script for Mac Users - For Mac users who may be uncomfortable with the Terminal.
Compile Instructions - How to build your own custom Windows binary from the source code.
Find_SSNs is written in Python and licensed under the GPL. If you are interested in an ISC license, please contact 16systems.

Program Information

Find_SSNs can search *most files for sensitive numbers. Searchable file formats include Microsoft Word, Excel and Access as well as file formats that store data in plain text. The OASIS Open Document XML format (Open Office 2) and the Microsoft Office 2007 Open XML format are also supported. The program searches for sensitive numbers in these formats:


(where N is a number and the numbers as a whole are validated as a potential sensitive number).

Find_SSNs is meant to be used by anyone, not just IT Professionals. On Windows, no software needs to be installed prior to running the program. Just download the software and run it. It's also designed to be as accurate as possible when searching files so as to reduce the number of false positives. However, there will always be false positives as many times valid sensitive numbers are often used in other contexts. For example, 123246789 is a valid SSN and because it's in this html page, Find_SSNs would identify this web page as a suspect file. So, always verify the results of Find_SSNs. The main goal of Find_SSNs is to identify files that contain sensitive data so users can either securely delete the files (if they are no longer needed) or store them securely and encrypt them to limit and/or prevent sensitive data loss.

Contact 16systems for questions, comments or suggestions.

* PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) and PST (Microsoft Outlook) files cannot be searched. Encrypted files cannot be searched. Nested zip archives are not searched. By default, files larger than 128 Megabytes are not searched. System files and multimedia files are not searched.