Bin Weevils data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the September 2014 breach of Bin Weevils. For every breach, see Breaches.
The Bin Weevils data breach exposed 1,287,073 accounts from binweevils.com in September 2014. The data taken includes passwords, usernames, email addresses and ages and 2 more kinds of data.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 18 Aug 2017, 3 years later. It is the 377th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
Bin Weevils’s breach included 6 kinds of data. What each lets criminals do:
| Data | What it’s used for |
|---|---|
| Passwords | Criminals try leaked passwords on email, banking and shopping sites, because people reuse them. |
| Usernames | Half of a login. With a reused password, it opens other accounts. |
| Email addresses | Expect scam emails that name the company to look genuine. |
| Ages | Personal details that make scam messages more convincing. |
| Genders | Personal details that make scam messages more convincing. |
| IP addresses | Roughly where you were when you used the service. |
What to do
- Check whether you’re in it.Search your email address on Have I Been Pwned. It tells you which breaches it appears in, Bin Weevils among them, without showing the data.
- Change your Bin Weevils password.If the account still exists, sign in at Bin Weevils (binweevils.com) and change it.
- Change it anywhere you used the same one.Start with your email, then banking and shopping. Leaked passwords are tried on other sites automatically, within days.
- Use a password manager and two-step sign-in.A different password for every site means one breach can’t open the rest. Two-step sign-in stops a leaked password working on its own.
- Distrust messages that mention Bin Weevils.Scammers use breach data to sound genuine. Don’t click links in emails or texts about the breach; go to the site yourself.
Timeline
- : the breach, as best it can be dated.
- : Have I Been Pwned verifies the data and adds it to its search, 3 years later.
Breaches often stay hidden for a long time. Until it came out, people in it had no reason to change anything.
Similar breaches
Breaches that leaked the same kinds of data, closest in time:
- Bitly, May 2014, 9.3 million accounts
- Forbes, February 2014, 1.1 million accounts
- Avast, May 2014, 422,959 accounts
- Malwarebytes, November 2014, 111,623 accounts
- Adobe, October 2013, 152 million accounts
- iMesh, September 2013, 49 million accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
- ^ Troy Hunt. “Bin Weevils”, Have I Been Pwned, added 18 Aug 2017. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- binweevils.com, Bin Weevils’s website