The Botting Network Data Breach

What happened

In August 2012, the forum for making money with botting "The Botting Network" suffered a data breach that exposed 96k user records. The now defunct vBulletin forum leaked 96k email addresses, usernames, dates of birth and salted MD5 password hashes.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Change your The Botting Network 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 The Botting Network — 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.