Breach date: 2020-10-19. Added to this index: 2021-10-11. Accounts affected: about 51K. Domain: playbook.vc.
What happened
In September 2021, a publicly accessible PostgresSQL database belonging to the Playbook service was identified. Run by VC firm Plug and Play Ventures, the database had been exposed since October 2020 and contained more than 50 thousand unique email addresses along with names, phone numbers, job titles and passwords stored as PBKDF2 hashes. It took more than 2 weeks after being notified of the exposed data to properly secure it. It's unknown whether Plug and Play Ventures notified impacted individuals as they ceased responding to queries from the press.
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.
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.
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.
Phone numbers: Your mobile or landline number, collected at signup for contact, delivery updates, marketing and two-factor codes.
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.
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 Playbook breach?
The Playbook breach exposed Email addresses, Job titles, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Social media profiles. About 51K accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the Playbook 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 Playbook 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.
