What Happened?

In January 2024, cybersecurity researchers discovered a massive trove of stolen personal data: 26 billion records containing passwords, usernames, names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, interests, and more. The so-called "Mother of All Breaches" contains data leaked from Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Evite, Adobe, and many more sources.

The owner of the MOAB dataset is unknown—they aren't revealing themselves, for obvious reasons—but security researchers are concerned that there could be an unprecedented impact on individuals.

Should I Be Concerned?

Unfortunately, yes. MOAB only amplifies the risk that some of your personal data is online and available for sale. If you reuse the same password across multiple sites, then one leak can put many of your accounts at risk.

Even if you're careful about online security, hackers and data brokers can pull together data about you from public sources, social media scraping, and data leaks. Each leak puts you at greater risk of identity theft, scams, and spam, and MOAB's size is particularly concerning.

What Can I Do?

Eliminating risk is impossible, but experts agree on a few key steps you can take:

  1. Use a strong, unique password for every account. Password managers help make this easy.
  2. Enable two-factor authentication.
  3. Remove your personal data from the web. Keenly can help!
  4. Monitor your credit and finances—coming soon to Keenly. Read our blog post to understand why monitoring your credit is important.