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Gawker Data Breach

Understand what this public breach record reports and choose next steps based on the information involved.

Breach date: December 11, 20101,247,574 affected accounts in the record
01

What happened?

In December 2010, Gawker was attacked by the hacker collective "Gnosis" in retaliation for what was reported to be a feud between Gawker and 4Chan. Information about Gawkers 1.3M users was published along with the data from Gawker's other web presences including Gizmodo and Lifehacker. Due to the prevalence of password reuse, many victims of the breach then had their Twitter accounts compromised to send Acai berry spam .

02

When did it happen?

The breach date in the public record is December 11, 2010. The record was added to the catalogue on December 4, 2013 and last updated there on December 4, 2013.

03

What information was reported as exposed?

  • Email addresses
  • Passwords
  • Usernames

These are incident-level categories. The record does not prove that every category was exposed for every affected person.

04

Who may be affected?

This record may be relevant to people who had an account or other relationship with Gawker or used gawker.com around December 11, 2010. A catalogue entry does not establish that every customer was affected or that every listed data category applied to each person. Compare the record with an official notice addressed to you.

05

What should you do?

Verify whether the notice applies to you

Compare the organization, dates, and information categories with any notice you received. Use contact details you independently confirm.

Secure affected accounts

Change exposed or reused passwords, begin with your email account, and turn on multi-factor authentication where available.

Expect targeted phishing

Treat unexpected breach follow-ups with caution. Do not use links or phone numbers in a suspicious message; contact the organization directly.

Choose actions that match the information involved. If you find signs that someone is using your identity, the Federal Trade Commission provides a personal recovery plan at IdentityTheft.gov.

Sources and review information

Page reviewed September 14, 2026 by the Data Breach Help Editorial Team. Catalogue details reflect the provider record and may change.