Exactis data breach

Breach date: 2018-06-01. Added to this index: 2018-07-25. Accounts affected: about 132M. Domain: exactis.com.

What happened

In June 2018, the marketing firm Exactis inadvertently publicly leaked 340 million records of personal data. Security researcher Vinny Troia of Night Lion Security discovered the leak contained multiple terabytes of personal information spread across hundreds of separate fields including addresses, phone numbers, family structures and extensive profiling data. The data was collected as part of Exactis' service as a "compiler and aggregator of premium business & consumer data" which they then sell for profiling and marketing purposes. A small subset of the exposed fields were provided to Have I Been Pwned and contained 132 million unique email addresses.

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

  • Credit status information: Details from a credit file or lender record, such as open accounts, credit limits, missed payments, defaults, bankruptcies, hardship arrangements and recent credit enquiries.
  • Dates of birth: Your full birth date, day, month and year, collected at signup for age checks, identity verification, insurance quotes, birthday offers or government services.
  • Education levels: Your highest qualification, such as high school, a trade certificate, a bachelor's degree or a postgraduate degree, collected by job sites, surveys, dating apps and marketing databases.
  • 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.
  • Ethnicities: Your recorded ethnic or racial background, often from workplace diversity surveys, health records, government forms, genetic testing services, dating apps and research studies.
  • Family structure: Information about your household, such as the number and ages of children, whether you are a single parent, who lives with you and whether you care for someone, collected by insurers, schools, government services, surveys and marketing databases.
  • Financial investments: Details of your investments, such as share holdings, managed funds, retirement or superannuation balances, brokerage account numbers, trading history and the platforms you use.
  • 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.
  • Home ownership statuses: A field showing whether you own your home outright, have a mortgage, rent or live with family, collected by lenders, insurers, utilities and marketing surveys.
  • Income levels: An estimated or self-reported household or personal income band, collected by surveys, lenders, retailers, dating apps and marketing databases.
  • IP addresses: The network addresses your devices used when you signed up, logged in or posted, recorded by almost every website in its access logs.
  • 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.

What to do now

  1. Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
  2. Review the accounts connected to this service and turn on two-factor authentication.
  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 Exactis breach?

The Exactis breach exposed Credit status information, Dates of birth, Education levels, Email addresses, Ethnicities, Family structure, Financial investments, Genders, Home ownership statuses, Income levels, IP addresses, Marital statuses, Names, Net worths, Occupations, Personal interests, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Religions, Spoken languages. About 132M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the Exactis 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 Exactis breach?

Treat any message that quotes details from this breach as suspicious, turn on two-factor authentication, and consider removing your details from people-search sites if your address or phone was included.

Next steps