Wattpad Data Breach

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.

When did it happen?

The breach date in the public record is June 29, 2020. The record was added to the catalogue on July 19, 2020 and last updated there on July 19, 2020.

What information was reported as exposed?

• Bios
• Dates of birth
• Email addresses
• Genders
• Geographic locations
• IP addresses
• Names
• Passwords
• Social media profiles
• User website URLs
• Usernames

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

Who may be affected?

This record may be relevant to people who had an account or other relationship with Wattpad or used wattpad.com around June 29, 2020. 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.

What should you do?

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.