InterPals data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the November 2015 breach of InterPals. For every breach, see Breaches.
The InterPals data breach exposed 3,439,414 accounts from interpals.net in November 2015. The data taken includes passwords, usernames, dates of birth and names and 2 more kinds of data.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 30 Aug 2016, 10 months later. It is the 248th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
InterPals’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. |
| Dates of birth | Used to prove who you are to banks and phone companies. |
| Names | Makes scam messages personal enough to believe. |
| Email addresses | Expect scam emails that name the company to look genuine. |
| Geographic locations | Roughly where you live. |
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, InterPals among them, without showing the data.
- Change your InterPals password.If the account still exists, sign in at InterPals (interpals.net) 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 InterPals.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, 10 months later.
Similar breaches
Breaches that leaked the same kinds of data, closest in time:
- Neopets, May 2013, 27 million accounts
- VNG, May 2015, 25 million accounts
- 500px, July 2018, 15 million accounts
- Trillian, December 2015, 3.8 million accounts
- Pluto TV, October 2018, 3.2 million accounts
- BookCrossing, November 2012, 1.6 million accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
- ^ Troy Hunt. “InterPals”, Have I Been Pwned, added 30 Aug 2016. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- interpals.net, InterPals’s website