500px Data Breach

What happened

In mid-2018, the online photography community 500px suffered a data breach. The incident exposed almost 15 million unique email addresses alongside names, usernames, genders, dates of birth and either an MD5 or bcrypt password hash. In 2019, the data appeared listed for sale on a dark web marketplace (along with several other large breaches) and subsequently began circulating more broadly.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Change your 500px password immediately, and update it anywhere you reused the same password.
• Enable two-factor authentication on the affected account and on your critical services (email, banking).
• Watch for targeted phishing emails referencing 500px — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Exposed identity data raises identity-theft risk — consider credit monitoring or a credit freeze.
• Check whether your email address appears in this breach on haveibeenpwned.com.