Avvo data breach

Breach date: 2019-12-17. Added to this index: 2022-04-15. Accounts affected: about 4.1M. Domain: avvo.com.

What happened

In approximately December 2019, an alleged data breach of the lawyer directory service Avvo was published to an online hacking forum and used in an extortion scam (it's possible the exposure dates back earlier than that). The data contained 4.1M unique email addresses alongside SHA-1 hashes, most likely representing user passwords. Multiple attempts at contacting Avvo over the course of a week were unsuccessful and the authenticity of the data was eventually verified with common Avvo and HIBP subscribers.

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 Avvo breach?

The Avvo breach exposed Email addresses, Passwords. About 4.1M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the Avvo 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 Avvo 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