Breach date: 2017-03-09. Added to this index: 2017-03-13. Accounts affected: about 1.6M. Domain: sterkinekor.co.za.
What happened
In 2016, the South African cinema company Ster-Kinekor had a security flaw which leaked a large amount of customer data via an enumeration vulnerability in the API of their old website. Whilst more than 6 million accounts were leaked by the flaw, the exposed data only contained 1.6 million unique email addresses. The data also included extensive personal information such as names, addresses, birthdates, genders and plain text passwords.
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
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.
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.
Physical addresses: Your residential, postal, billing or delivery address, stored by retailers, utilities, banks, government services and almost any company that sends you something.
Spoken languages: The languages listed on your profile or account settings, collected by dating apps, job sites, travel services and customer support systems.
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 Ster-Kinekor breach?
The Ster-Kinekor breach exposed Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Spoken languages. About 1.6M accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the Ster-Kinekor 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 Ster-Kinekor 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.