Patreon data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the October 2015 breach of Patreon. For every breach, see Breaches.
The Patreon data breach exposed 2,330,382 accounts from patreon.com in October 2015. The data taken includes passwords, payment histories, physical addresses and email addresses and 2 more kinds of data.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 2 Oct 2015, within a month. It is the 297th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
Patreon’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. |
| Payment histories | Shows what you buy, which makes fake order and refund scams convincing. |
| Physical addresses | Used to prove who you are, and for scam letters and parcels. |
| Email addresses | Expect scam emails that name the company to look genuine. |
| Private messages | What you wrote, readable by whoever has the data. |
| Website activity | Personal details that make scam messages more convincing. |
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, Patreon among them, without showing the data.
- Change your Patreon password.If the account still exists, sign in at Patreon (patreon.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 Patreon.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.
- : the entry was last updated.
Similar breaches
Breaches that leaked the same kinds of data, closest in time:
- WHMCS, May 2012, 134,047 accounts
- ClixSense, September 2016, 2.4 million accounts
- ClearVoice Surveys, August 2015, 15 million accounts
- MyFHA, February 2015, 972,629 accounts
- Comcast, November 2015, 616,882 accounts
- CashCrate, November 2016, 6.8 million accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- patreon.com, Patreon’s website