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Data breaches → Autotrader

Was your data in the Autotrader breach?

2023 · autotrader.com · ~20,032 accounts exposedCritical severity · 8/10

Autotrader (autotrader.com) suffered a data breach in 2023 that exposed around 20,032 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 January 2023, 1.4M records from the Autotrader online vehicle marketplace appeared on a popular hacking forum. Autotrader stated that the "data in question relates to aged listing data that was generally publicly available on our site at the time and open to automated collection methods". The data contained 20k unique email addresses alongside physical addresses and phone numbers of dealers and vehicle details including VIN numbers.

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 Autotrader breach exposed and what each item actually enables:

Home addresses

Home addresses feed people-search and data-broker sites, which republish them publicly. They also make phishing far more convincing and, in the worst cases, enable real-world harassment.

Phone numbers

Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.

Email addresses

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, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Vehicle details, Vehicle identification numbers (VINs).

What to do if you were affected

These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.

  1. Home addresses: Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating.
  2. Phone numbers: Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider.
  3. Email addresses: Treat any message referencing this service with suspicion, and never act on links in unexpected emails.
  4. Check whether your own email appears in this breach — run a free scan to confirm before you spend time on the steps above.

This breach put your details on data-broker sites

Because Autotrader exposed home addresses, this is one of the breaches that feeds people-search and data-broker sites. Those sites scrape leaked databases, combine them with public records, and republish the result as a searchable profile — which is how a single breach turns into a permanent public listing. Removal works, but brokers typically re-list within about four months, so it has to be repeated.

See our broker-by-broker removal guides →

How urgent is this now?

This data has been circulating for around 3 years, which means it has been copied, combined with other leaks and indexed by search tools many times over.

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.

Check if your email was exposed.Nullivo's free scan checks your own verified email against known breaches — including Autotrader — in 30 seconds. No password, no signup, and we only ever scan your own email. Run your free scan →

Frequently asked questions

What data was exposed in the Autotrader breach?

The Autotrader breach exposed home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses. Home addresses feed people-search and data-broker sites, which republish them publicly. They also make phishing far more convincing and, in the worst cases, enable real-world harassment.

How many people were affected by the Autotrader breach?

Around 20,032 accounts were exposed, making it a smaller, more targeted breach.

What should I do if I had a Autotrader account?

Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating. 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 Autotrader breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.

See all breaches we cover →