VK Data Breach

What happened

In approximately 2012, the Russian social media site known as VK was hacked and almost 100 million accounts were exposed. The data emerged in June 2016 where it was being sold via a dark market website and included names, phone numbers email addresses and plain text passwords.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Change your VK 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 VK — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Stay alert for smishing (SMS phishing) and SIM-swap attempts using your phone number.
• Check whether your email address appears in this breach on haveibeenpwned.com.