Twitter (200M) data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the January 2021 breach of Twitter (200M). For every breach, see Breaches.
The Twitter (200M) data breach exposed 211,524,284 accounts from twitter.com in January 2021. The data taken includes usernames, names, email addresses and social media profiles.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 5 Jan 2023, 2 years later. It is the 10th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
Twitter (200M)’s breach included 4 kinds of data. What each lets criminals do:
| Data | What it’s used for |
|---|---|
| Usernames | Half of a login. With a reused password, it opens other accounts. |
| Names | Makes scam messages personal enough to believe. |
| Email addresses | Expect scam emails that name the company to look genuine. |
| Social media profiles | A way to reach you with scams. |
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, Twitter (200M) among them, without showing the data.
- Turn on two-step sign-in.On Twitter (200M) (twitter.com) and your email, so leaked sign-in details aren’t enough on their own.
- Distrust messages that mention Twitter (200M).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, 2 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:
- Liker, March 2021, 465,141 accounts
- Wattpad, June 2020, 269 million accounts
- Mangatoon, May 2022, 23 million accounts
- Wishbone (2020), January 2020, 9.7 million accounts
- ClickASnap, September 2022, 3.3 million accounts
- YouNow, February 2019, 18 million accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
- ^ Troy Hunt. “Twitter (200M)”, Have I Been Pwned, added 5 Jan 2023. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- twitter.com, Twitter (200M)’s website