LiveJournal data breach

Breach date: 2017-01-01. Added to this index: 2020-05-26. Accounts affected: about 26M. Domain: livejournal.com.

What happened

In mid-2019, news broke of an alleged LiveJournal data breach. This followed multiple reports of credential abuse against Dreamwidth beginning in 2018, a fork of LiveJournal with a significant crossover in user base. The breach allegedly dates back to 2017 and contains 26M unique usernames and email addresses (both of which have been confirmed to exist on LiveJournal) alongside plain text passwords. An archive of the data was subsequently shared on a popular hacking forum in May 2020 and redistributed broadly.

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.
  • 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 LiveJournal breach?

The LiveJournal breach exposed Email addresses, Passwords, Usernames. About 26M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the LiveJournal 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 LiveJournal 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