Anti Public Combo List data breach

Breach date: 2016-12-16. Added to this index: 2017-05-04. Accounts affected: about 458M. Domain: not listed.

What happened

In December 2016, a huge list of email address and password pairs appeared in a "combo list" referred to as "Anti Public". The list contained 458 million unique email addresses, many with multiple different passwords hacked from various online systems. The list was broadly circulated and used for "credential stuffing", that is attackers employ it in an attempt to identify other online systems where the account owner had reused their password. For detailed background on this incident, read Password reuse, credential stuffing and another billion records in Have I Been Pwned.

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.
  • 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.

What to do now

  1. Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
  2. Change the password on this service and every other site where you used the same password.
  3. Turn on two-factor authentication on your email account first, because it is the reset path for everything else.
  4. 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 Anti Public Combo List breach?

The Anti Public Combo List breach exposed Email addresses, Passwords. About 458M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the Anti Public Combo List 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 Anti Public Combo List 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.

Next steps