Breach date: 2020-06-29. Added to this index: 2020-07-19. Accounts affected: about 269M. Domain: wattpad.com.
What happened
In June 2020, the user-generated stories website Wattpad suffered a huge data breach that exposed almost 270 million records. The data was initially sold then published on a public hacking forum where it was broadly shared. The incident exposed extensive personal information including names and usernames, email and IP addresses, genders, birth dates and passwords stored as bcrypt hashes.
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
Bios: The free text about me section you wrote for a profile on a dating app, forum, social network, gaming platform or professional site.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Social media profiles: Usernames, profile URLs or handles for social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn or Discord, stored alongside another account.
User website URLs: The personal blog, portfolio, business website or link in bio that you added to a profile, forum account or directory listing.
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
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 Wattpad breach?
The Wattpad breach exposed Bios, Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Geographic locations, IP addresses, Names, Passwords, Social media profiles, User website URLs, Usernames. About 269M accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the Wattpad 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 Wattpad 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.