Breach date: 2021-12-01. Added to this index: 2022-01-15. Accounts affected: about 5.5M. Domain: abfrl.com.
What happened
In December 2021, Indian retailer Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd was breached and ransomed. The ransom demand was allegedly rejected and data containing 5.4M unique email addresses was subsequently dumped publicly on a popular hacking forum the next month. The data contained extensive personal customer information including names, phone numbers, physical addresses, DoBs, order histories and passwords stored as MD5 hashes. Employee data was also dumped publicly and included salary grades, marital statuses and religions.
Breach data sourced from Have I Been Pwned, used under CC BY 4.0. Additional breach metadata provided by XposedOrNot. DataExposed is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.
What was exposed
Email addresses: The email address you used to register or log in. It is the most common field in breaches because it doubles as your username on most sites.
Genders: The gender or sex recorded on your profile, usually picked from a list at signup, sometimes with a title such as Mr or Ms or a gender identity option beyond male and female.
Income levels: An estimated or self-reported household or personal income band, collected by surveys, lenders, retailers, dating apps and marketing databases.
Job titles: Your role or position, such as accounts payable officer, nurse or IT administrator, recorded by professional networks, business software, event registrations and marketing lists.
Marital statuses: Your relationship status, such as single, married, de facto, separated, divorced or widowed, collected by insurers, lenders, government forms, dating apps and marketing surveys.
Names: Your first name, surname and sometimes middle name or initials, as you gave them when you signed up. It appears in almost every breach because nearly every account asks for it.
Passwords: The secret you use to sign in, stored by the breached service either in plain text, in a scrambled form called a hash, or encrypted. How it was stored decides how quickly it can be recovered.
Phone numbers: Your mobile or landline number, collected at signup for contact, delivery updates, marketing and two-factor codes.
Physical addresses: Your residential, postal, billing or delivery address, stored by retailers, utilities, banks, government services and almost any company that sends you something.
Purchases: Records of items or services you bought, often with order numbers, prices, dates, delivery addresses and the store or seller involved.
Religions: Your faith, denomination, beliefs or religious community membership, recorded by dating apps, faith apps, charities, schools, churches and community organisations.
Salutations: The title used before your name, such as Mr, Mrs, Ms, Mx, Dr or Rev, stored so letters and emails can address you formally.
What to do now
Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
Change the password on this service and every other site where you used the same password.
Turn on two-factor authentication on your email account first, because it is the reset path for everything else.
Treat calls and messages that quote real details about you as hostile until you verify them another way.
Frequently asked questions
What data was leaked in the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail breach?
The Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail breach exposed Email addresses, Genders, Income levels, Job titles, Marital statuses, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Purchases, Religions, Salutations. About 5.5M accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail breach?
Run the free email breach check with the address you used on that service. It will tell you whether your address appears in this dataset.
What should I do about the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail breach?
Change the password on that account and everywhere you reused it, then turn on two-factor authentication. Passwords from this breach are traded and tried automatically against other sites.