NewsCompaniesFlawsGuides
Get the app

Kickstarter data breach

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

The Kickstarter data breach exposed 5,176,463 accounts from kickstarter.com in February 2014. The data taken includes passwords and email addresses.[1]

Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 6 Oct 2017, 4 years later. It is the 194th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.

What was exposed

Kickstarter’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, Kickstarter among them, without showing the data.
  2. Change your Kickstarter password.If the account still exists, sign in at Kickstarter (kickstarter.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 Kickstarter.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:

  • Bitly, May 2014, 9.3 million accounts
  • ReverbNation, January 2014, 7 million accounts
  • Bin Weevils, September 2014, 1.3 million accounts
  • Forbes, February 2014, 1.1 million accounts
  • Domino's, June 2014, 648,231 accounts
  • Avast, May 2014, 422,959 accounts

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

References

  1. ^ Troy Hunt. “Kickstarter”, Have I Been Pwned, added 6 Oct 2017. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.