MyHeritage data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the October 2017 breach of MyHeritage. For every breach, see Breaches.
The MyHeritage data breach exposed 91,991,358 accounts from myheritage.com in October 2017. The data taken includes passwords and email addresses.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 20 Feb 2019, 16 months later. It is the 25th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
MyHeritage’s breach included 2 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. |
| Email addresses | Expect scam emails that name the company to look genuine. |
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, MyHeritage among them, without showing the data.
- Change your MyHeritage password.If the account still exists, sign in at MyHeritage (myheritage.com) 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 MyHeritage.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, 16 months 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:
- Edmodo, May 2017, 43 million accounts
- LiveJournal, January 2017, 26 million accounts
- 8tracks, June 2017, 18 million accounts
- Zomato, May 2017, 16 million accounts
- Dueling Network, March 2017, 6.5 million accounts
- Ge.tt, May 2017, 2.5 million accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
- ^ Troy Hunt. “MyHeritage”, Have I Been Pwned, added 20 Feb 2019. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- myheritage.com, MyHeritage’s website