hackforums.net data breach: 191K accounts exposed
Severity: high · Patch status: no-fix-needed · Since 2014-05-11
In June 2011, the hacktivist group known as "LulzSec" leaked one final large data breach they titled "50 days of lulz". The compromised data came from sources such as AT&T, Battlefield Heroes and the hackforums.net website. The leaked Hack Forums data included credentials and personal information of nearly 200,000 registered forum users. Exposed data: dates of birth, email addresses, instant messenger identities, ip addresses, passwords, social connections, spoken languages, time zones, user website urls, usernames, website activity. The breach dates from Jun 25, 2011; Have I Been Pwned loaded it on May 11, 2014.
What to do
- If you had a hackforums.net account, change its password and the password of any other account that reused it.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication wherever it is offered.
- Check whether your addresses are in this breach at https://haveibeenpwned.com.
- Expect targeted phishing that quotes the leaked details; verify any unexpected contact out of band.
Sources
All live incidents on Threat Watch