LimeLeads data breach: 17.8M accounts exposed
Severity: medium · Patch status: no-fix-needed · Since 2026-09-22
In 2019, the now-defunct B2B marketing leads database service LimeLeads suffered a data breach due to an exposed, unsecured Elasticsearch server. The incident exposed tens of millions of records of largely corporate contact data containing 17.8M unique email addresses, along with phone numbers, employers, job titles and geographic locations including state, city and postcode. Exposed data: email addresses, employers, geographic locations, job titles, phone numbers. The breach dates from Aug 1, 2019; Have I Been Pwned loaded it on Sep 22, 2026.
What to do
- If you had a LimeLeads 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
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