Mate1.com data breach

Breach date: 2016-02-29. Added to this index: 2016-04-14. Accounts affected: about 27M. Domain: mate1.com.

What happened

In February 2016, the dating site mate1.com suffered a huge data breach resulting in the disclosure of over 27 million subscribers' information. The data included deeply personal information about their private lives including drug and alcohol habits, incomes levels and sexual fetishes as well as passwords stored in plain text.

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

  • Astrological signs: The zodiac sign stored against your profile, usually on a dating or social app that shows it on your public page. It is derived from your birth date.
  • 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.
  • Drinking habits: Answers about alcohol use, such as never, socially or regularly, stored by dating apps, health and fitness apps, insurer questionnaires, surveys, and sometimes treatment or recovery services.
  • Drug habits: Answers or records about recreational or prescription drug use, stored by dating apps, harm reduction and health apps, surveys, insurers, treatment services and sometimes workplace drug testing providers.
  • 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.
  • Fitness levels: Your self-reported or tracked fitness level, workout history, step counts, heart rate trends and sometimes exercise routes, stored by gyms, fitness apps, wearables and dating apps.
  • 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.
  • Income levels: An estimated or self-reported household or personal income band, collected by surveys, lenders, retailers, dating apps and marketing databases.
  • 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.

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 Mate1.com breach?

The Mate1.com breach exposed Astrological signs, Dates of birth, Drinking habits, Drug habits, Education levels, Email addresses, Ethnicities, Fitness levels, Genders, Geographic locations, Income levels, Job titles, Names, Parenting plans, Passwords, Personal descriptions, Physical attributes, Political views, Relationship statuses, Religions, Sexual fetishes, Travel habits, Usernames, Website activity, Work habits. About 27M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the Mate1.com 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 Mate1.com 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