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Forbes data breach

From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the February 2014 breach of Forbes. For every breach, see Breaches.

The Forbes data breach exposed 1,057,819 accounts from forbes.com in February 2014. The data taken includes passwords, usernames, email addresses and user website URLs.[1]

Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 15 Feb 2014, within a month. It is the 410th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.

What was exposed

Forbes’s breach included 4 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.
User website URLsPersonal details that make scam messages more convincing.

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, Forbes among them, without showing the data.
  2. Change your Forbes password.If the account still exists, sign in at Forbes (forbes.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 Forbes.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, within a month.

Similar breaches

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

  • Bitly, May 2014, 9.3 million accounts
  • Bin Weevils, September 2014, 1.3 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

  1. ^ Troy Hunt. “Forbes”, Have I Been Pwned, added 15 Feb 2014. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.