LiveJournal Data Breach

What happened

In mid-2019, news broke of an alleged LiveJournal data breach. This followed multiple reports of credential abuse against Dreamwidth beginning in 2018, a fork of LiveJournal with a significant crossover in user base. The breach allegedly dates back to 2017 and contains 26M unique usernames and email addresses (both of which have been confirmed to exist on LiveJournal) alongside plain text passwords. An archive of the data was subsequently shared on a popular hacking forum in May 2020 and redistributed broadly.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Change your LiveJournal 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 LiveJournal — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Check whether your email address appears in this breach on haveibeenpwned.com.