Data breaches → Apollo
Was your data in the Apollo breach?
2018 · apollo.io · ~125,929,660 accounts exposedCritical severity · 8/10
Apollo (apollo.io) suffered a data breach in 2018 that exposed around 125,929,660 accounts. If you had an account, some of your personal data may be circulating in leaked databases. The fastest way to know is to check your own email — free, in about 30 seconds, no password required.
What happened
In July 2018, the sales engagement startup Apollo left a database containing billions of data points publicly exposed without a password. The data was discovered by security researcher Vinny Troia who subsequently sent a subset of the data containing 126 million unique email addresses to Have I Been Pwned. The data left exposed by Apollo was used in their "revenue acceleration platform" and included personal information such as names and email addresses as well as professional information including places of employment, the roles people hold and where they're located. Apollo stressed that the exposed data did not include sensitive information such as passwords, social security numbers or financial data. The Apollo website has a contact form for those looking to get in touch with the organisation.
Breach details sourced from Have I Been Pwned, the industry-standard breach database. Risk analysis by Nullivo.
What was exposed, and why it matters
Not all breaches carry the same risk — what matters is which fields leaked. Here is what the Apollo breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.
Reveals where you live, work or travel, which supports both targeted scams and physical-safety risks.
Links this leak to your other accounts — a reused username lets anyone build a profile of you across platforms.
Puts you on spam and phishing lists, and confirms to attackers that you hold an account with this service — which makes impersonation emails more believable.
Also listed in this breach: Email addresses, Employers, Geographic locations, Job titles, Names, Phone numbers, Salutations, Social media profiles.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Phone numbers: Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider.
- Location data: Review location sharing on the accounts you still hold with this service.
- Names and usernames: Search your usual username to see what else it exposes, and use distinct handles for sensitive accounts.
- Email addresses: Treat any message referencing this service with suspicion, and never act on links in unexpected emails.
- Check whether your own email appears in this breach — run a free scan to confirm before you spend time on the steps above.
How urgent is this now?
This breach is over 8 years old. Old credentials still cause harm — leaked passwords from a decade ago are still tried against new accounts every day.
Remember: a breach can't be "un-leaked" — once a database is out, it exists in countless copies. The goal is to make the leaked data useless: change what can be changed, lock down what can't, and remove what has been republished.
Frequently asked questions
What data was exposed in the Apollo breach?
The Apollo breach exposed phone numbers, location data, names and usernames, email addresses. Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.
How many people were affected by the Apollo breach?
Around 125,929,660 accounts were exposed, making it one of the largest breaches ever recorded.
What should I do if I had a Apollo account?
Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider. You can check whether your own email appears in this breach with a free Nullivo scan — no password required.
Breaches that exposed similar data
If the Apollo breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Data Enrichment Exposure From PDL Customer breach? (2019, ~622,161,052 accounts)
- Was your data in the You've Been Scraped breach? (2018, ~66,147,869 accounts)
- Was your data in the Adapt breach? (2018, ~9,363,740 accounts)
- Was your data in the Verifications.io breach? (2019, ~763,117,241 accounts)
- Was your data in the DemandScience by Pure Incubation breach? (2024, ~121,796,165 accounts)
- Was your data in the Data & Leads breach? (2018, ~44,320,330 accounts)