Gamigo data breach

From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the March 2012 breach of Gamigo. For every breach, see Breaches.

The Gamigo data breach exposed 8,243,604 accounts from gamigo.com in March 2012. The data taken includes passwords and email addresses.[1]

Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 18 Jan 2016, 4 years later. It is the 143rd largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.

What was exposed

Gamigo’s breach included 2 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.
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, Gamigo among them, without showing the data.
  2. Change your Gamigo password.If the account still exists, sign in at Gamigo (gamigo.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 Gamigo.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, 4 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:

  • LinkedIn, May 2012, 165 million accounts
  • Dropbox, July 2012, 69 million accounts
  • Netlog, November 2012, 49 million accounts
  • Disqus, July 2012, 18 million accounts
  • BookCrossing, November 2012, 1.6 million accounts
  • Yahoo, July 2012, 453,427 accounts

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

References

  1. ^ Troy Hunt. “Gamigo”, Have I Been Pwned, added 18 Jan 2016. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.