ixigo data breach

Breach date: 2019-01-03. Added to this index: 2019-03-17. Accounts affected: about 17M. Domain: ixigo.com.

What happened

In January 2019, the travel and hotel booking site ixigo suffered a data breach. The data appeared for sale on a dark web marketplace the following month and included over 17M unique email addresses alongside names, genders, phone numbers, connections to Facebook profiles and passwords stored as MD5 hashes.

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

  • Auth tokens: Strings a service issues after you log in, session cookies, API keys, refresh tokens or reset links, that prove to the server you are already signed in.
  • Device information: Technical details an app or website recorded about your device: make and model, operating system version, screen size, language, carrier, and sometimes the device name or advertising ID.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Social media profiles: Usernames, profile URLs or handles for social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn or Discord, stored alongside another account.
  • Usernames: The handle or login name you chose for an account, which may be public on forums, games and social platforms or used privately to sign in.

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 ixigo breach?

The ixigo breach exposed Auth tokens, Device information, Email addresses, Genders, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Salutations, Social media profiles, Usernames. About 17M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the ixigo 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 ixigo 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