Breach Intelligence

In May 2019, the Chinese literature website Read Novel allegedly suffered a data breach that exposed 22M unique email addresses. Data also included usernames, genders, phone numbers and passwords stored as salted MD5 hashes.

In February 2022, Explore Talent, a platform known for connecting talent with casting opportunities, suffered a data breach. Reports suggest that the breach exposed approximately 5.5 million records. Among the compromised data were email addresses, names, phone numbers, physical addresses, usernames, and passwords in plaintext.

In March 2021, the Brazilian EdTech company Descomplica suffered a data breach which was subsequently posted to a popular hacking forum. The data included almost 5 million email addresses, names, the first 6 and last 4 digits and the expiry date of credit cards, purchase histories and password hashes.

In 2016, the adult website Eroticy was allegedly hacked. The breach reportedly affected almost 1.4 million users. Among the compromised data were names, usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, physical locations, IP addresses, passwords, payment information, and site activity.

In 2016, Abusewith.us, a site dedicated to helping people hack email and online gaming accounts, allegedly suffered multiple data breaches. Reports suggest the site shared an administrator with the now-defunct LeakedSource service. The incident reportedly exposed more than 1.3 million unique email addresses, often accompanied by usernames, IP addresses, and passwords—stored either in plain text or as hashes—sourced from various locations and intended for use in compromising victims’ accounts.