uTorrent data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the January 2016 breach of uTorrent. For every breach, see Breaches.
The uTorrent data breach exposed 395,044 accounts from utorrent.com in January 2016. The data taken includes passwords, usernames and email addresses.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 5 Nov 2016, 10 months later. It is the 503rd largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
uTorrent’s breach included 3 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. |
| 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, uTorrent among them, without showing the data.
- Change your uTorrent password.If the account still exists, sign in at uTorrent (utorrent.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 uTorrent.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:
- Dailymotion, October 2016, 85 million accounts
- Evony, June 2016, 29 million accounts
- Tunngle, July 2016, 8.2 million accounts
- Funimation, July 2016, 2.5 million accounts
- CD Projekt RED, March 2016, 1.9 million accounts
- OnRPG, July 2016, 1 million accounts
See Breaches for all 618, and Updates for keeping your devices patched.
References
- ^ Troy Hunt. “uTorrent”, Have I Been Pwned, added 5 Nov 2016. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- utorrent.com, uTorrent’s website