Duolingo Data Breach

What happened

In August 2023, 2.6M records of data scraped from Duolingo were broadly distributed on a popular hacking forum. Obtained by enumerating a vulnerable API, the data had earlier appeared for sale in January 2023 and contained email addresses, names, the languages being learned, XP (experience points), and other data related to learning progress on Duolingo. Whilst some of the data attributes are intentionally public, the ability to map private email addresses to them presents an ongoing risk to user privacy.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Watch for targeted phishing emails referencing Duolingo — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Check whether your email address appears in this breach on haveibeenpwned.com.