Data breaches → Chowbus
Was your data in the Chowbus breach?
2020 · chowbus.com · ~444,224 accounts exposedCritical severity · 8/10
Chowbus (chowbus.com) suffered a data breach in 2020 that exposed around 444,224 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 October 2020, the Asian food delivery app Chowbus suffered a data breach which led to over 800,000 records being emailed to customers. The email contained a link to a CSV file with customer data including physical addresses, names, phone numbers and over 444,000 unique email addresses.
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 Chowbus breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
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.
Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.
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.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Home addresses: Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating.
- Phone numbers: Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider.
- 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.
This breach put your details on data-broker sites
Because Chowbus 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 breach is over 6 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 Chowbus breach?
The Chowbus breach exposed home addresses, phone numbers, names and usernames, 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 Chowbus breach?
Around 444,224 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a Chowbus 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 Chowbus breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the ProctorU breach? (2020, ~444,453 accounts)
- Was your data in the University of California breach? (2020, ~547,422 accounts)
- Was your data in the People's Energy breach? (2020, ~358,822 accounts)
- Was your data in the TrueFire breach? (2020, ~599,667 accounts)
- Was your data in the Livpure breach? (2020, ~269,552 accounts)
- Was your data in the Capital Economics breach? (2020, ~263,829 accounts)