Web Hosting Talk data breach
From Breaches, in the HARD wiki · Updated
This article is about the July 2016 breach of Web Hosting Talk. For every breach, see Breaches.
The Web Hosting Talk data breach exposed 515,149 accounts from webhostingtalk.com in July 2016. The data taken includes passwords, usernames, email addresses and IP addresses.[1]
Have I Been Pwned verified it and added it to its search on 17 Dec 2025, 10 years later. It is the 476th largest of the 618 breaches in HARD’s list.
What was exposed
Web Hosting Talk’s breach included 4 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. |
| IP addresses | Roughly where you were when you used the service. |
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, Web Hosting Talk among them, without showing the data.
- Change your Web Hosting Talk password.If the account still exists, sign in at Web Hosting Talk (webhostingtalk.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 Web Hosting Talk.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 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:
- 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. “Web Hosting Talk”, Have I Been Pwned, added 17 Dec 2025. Breach data licensed CC BY 4.0.
External links
- Have I Been Pwned, to check your email address
- webhostingtalk.com, Web Hosting Talk’s website