PayHere Data Breach

What happened

In late March 2022, the Sri Lankan payment gateway PayHere suffered a data breach that exposed more than 65GB of payment records including over 1.5M unique email addresses. The data also included IP and physical addresses, names, phone numbers, purchase histories and partially obfuscated credit card data (card type, first 6 and last 4 digits plus expiry date). A month later, PayHere published a blog on the incident titled Ensuring Integrity on PayHere Cybersecurity Incident.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Watch for targeted phishing emails referencing PayHere — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Monitor your bank and card statements closely and consider requesting a card replacement.
• Stay alert for smishing (SMS phishing) and SIM-swap attempts using your phone number.
• 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.