XKCD Data Breach

What happened

In July 2019, the forum for webcomic XKCD suffered a data breach that impacted 562k subscribers. The breached phpBB forum leaked usernames, email and IP addresses and passwords stored in MD5 phpBB3 format. The data was provided to HIBP by white hat security researcher and data analyst Adam Davies.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

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