Breach date: 2021-04-08. Added to this index: 2021-10-02. Accounts affected: about 126M. Domain: linkedin.com.
What happened
During the first half of 2021, LinkedIn was targeted by attackers who scraped data from hundreds of millions of public profiles and later sold them online. Whilst the scraping did not constitute a data breach nor did it access any personal data not intended to be publicly accessible, the data was still monetised and later broadly circulated in hacking circles. The scraped data contains approximately 400M records with 125M unique email addresses, as well as names, geographic locations, genders and job titles. LinkedIn specifically addresses the incident in their post on An update on report of scraped data.
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
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.
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.
Geographic locations: A general location recorded on your account, such as a country, state, city, postcode or region, either typed in by you or estimated from your IP address.
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.
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.
Social media profiles: Usernames, profile URLs or handles for social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn or Discord, stored alongside another account.
What to do now
Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
Review the accounts connected to this service and turn on two-factor authentication.
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 LinkedIn Scraped Data (2021) breach?
The LinkedIn Scraped Data (2021) breach exposed Education levels, Email addresses, Genders, Geographic locations, Job titles, Names, Social media profiles. About 126M accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the LinkedIn Scraped Data (2021) 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 LinkedIn Scraped Data (2021) 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.