Breach date: 2016-02-21. Added to this index: 2016-02-22. Accounts affected: about 145K. Domain: linuxmint.com.
What happened
In February 2016, the website for the Linux distro known as Linux Mint was hacked and the ISO infected with a backdoor. The site also ran a phpBB forum which was subsequently put up for sale complete with almost 145k email addresses, passwords and other personal subscriber information.
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
Avatars: The small profile image attached to your account, which may be a real photo, a cartoon, a generated icon or a picture taken from another service.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Time zones: The time zone saved in your account or device settings, used to show times correctly for messages, meetings and notifications.
Website activity: Records of your actions on a website or app, such as pages viewed, searches, clicks, downloads, logins, cart activity, IP addresses and timestamps.
What to do now
Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
Change the password on this service and every other site where you used the same password.
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 Linux Mint breach?
The Linux Mint breach exposed Avatars, Dates of birth, Email addresses, Geographic locations, IP addresses, Passwords, Time zones, Website activity. About 145K accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the Linux Mint 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 Linux Mint 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.