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CD Projekt RED data breach

From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the March 2016 breach of CD Projekt RED. For every breach, see Breaches.

The CD Projekt RED data breach exposed 1,871,373 accounts from cdprojektred.com in March 2016. The data taken includes passwords, usernames and email addresses.[1]

Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 31 Jan 2017, 11 months later. It is the 321st largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.

What was exposed

CD Projekt RED’s breach included 3 kinds of data. What each lets criminals do:

DataWhat it’s used for
PasswordsCriminals try leaked passwords on email, banking and shopping sites, because people reuse them.
UsernamesHalf of a login. With a reused password, it opens other accounts.
Email addressesExpect scam emails that name the company to look genuine.

What to do

  1. Check whether you’re in it.Search your email address on Have I Been Pwned. It tells you which breaches it appears in, CD Projekt RED among them, without showing the data.
  2. Change your CD Projekt RED password.If the account still exists, sign in at CD Projekt RED (cdprojektred.com) and change it.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Distrust messages that mention CD Projekt RED.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, 11 months later.

Similar breaches

Breaches that leaked the same kinds of data, closest in time:

  • Dailymotion, October 2016, 85 million accounts
  • Evony, June 2016, 29 million accounts
  • Tunngle, July 2016, 8.2 million accounts
  • Funimation, July 2016, 2.5 million accounts
  • OnRPG, July 2016, 1 million accounts
  • StreetEasy, June 2016, 988,230 accounts

See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.

References

  1. ^ Troy Hunt. “CD Projekt RED”, Have I Been Pwned, added 31 Jan 2017. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.