Neteller data breach

Breach date: 2010-05-17. Added to this index: 2015-11-30. Accounts affected: about 3.6M. Domain: neteller.com.

What happened

In May 2010, the e-wallet service known as Neteller suffered a data breach which exposed over 3.6M customers. The breach was not discovered until October 2015 and included names, email addresses, home addresses and account balances.

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

  • Account balances: The amount of money, credit or stored value recorded against your account at the moment the data was taken. It appears in banking, brokerage, wallet, gaming and loyalty breaches.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Phone numbers: Your mobile or landline number, collected at signup for contact, delivery updates, marketing and two-factor codes.
  • Physical addresses: Your residential, postal, billing or delivery address, stored by retailers, utilities, banks, government services and almost any company that sends you something.
  • Security questions and answers: The questions and answers used to verify you during password resets or phone support, such as your first pet, first school, favourite teacher or mother's maiden name.
  • 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

  1. Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
  2. Review the accounts connected to this service and turn on two-factor authentication.
  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 Neteller breach?

The Neteller breach exposed Account balances, Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, IP addresses, Names, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Security questions and answers, Website activity. About 3.6M accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the Neteller 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 Neteller 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.

Next steps