Data breaches → Fling
Was your data in the Fling breach?
2011 · fling.com · ~40,767,652 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Fling (fling.com) suffered a data breach in 2011 that exposed around 40,767,652 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 2011, the self-proclaimed "World's Best Adult Social Network" website known as Fling was hacked and more than 40 million accounts obtained by the attacker. The breached data included highly sensitive personal attributes such as sexual orientation and sexual interests as well as email addresses and passwords stored in plain text.
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 Fling breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Attackers replay leaked passwords across other sites (“credential stuffing”). Because most people reuse passwords, one leak often unlocks email, shopping and banking accounts elsewhere.
Special-category data under UK/EU GDPR. Exposure can lead to discrimination, extortion or targeted harassment, and cannot be undone.
Date of birth is a permanent identifier used to verify identity by phone. Combined with a name and address it is often enough to impersonate you.
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.
Reveals your approximate location and internet provider, which adds credibility to targeted scams.
Also listed in this breach: Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Geographic locations, IP addresses, Passwords, Phone numbers, Sexual fetishes, Sexual orientations, Usernames, Website activity.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Passwords: Change this password everywhere you have reused it, starting with your email account — whoever controls your email can reset everything else.
- Sensitive personal characteristics: Under UK/EU GDPR you have a strong right to erasure here — exercise it with the service and with any site republishing the data.
- Dates of birth: Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number.
- 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.
- 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 Fling exposed sensitive personal characteristics, 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 15 years old. Old credentials still cause harm — leaked passwords from a decade ago are still tried against new accounts every day.
Passwords are the reason breach age matters less than people expect. Leaked credentials are compiled into wordlists that get tried against new services for years afterwards, so a password exposed here is unsafe to use anywhere, ever again.
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 Fling breach?
The Fling breach exposed passwords, sensitive personal characteristics, dates of birth, phone numbers, location data, names and usernames, email addresses, ip addresses. Attackers replay leaked passwords across other sites (“credential stuffing”). Because most people reuse passwords, one leak often unlocks email, shopping and banking accounts elsewhere.
How many people were affected by the Fling breach?
Around 40,767,652 accounts were exposed, making it a very large breach by any measure.
What should I do if I had a Fling account?
Change this password everywhere you have reused it, starting with your email account — whoever controls your email can reset everything else. 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 Fling breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the CyberServe breach? (2021, ~1,107,034 accounts)
- Was your data in the Ashley Madison breach? (2015, ~30,811,934 accounts)
- Was your data in the Mate1.com breach? (2016, ~27,393,015 accounts)
- Was your data in the Beautiful People breach? (2015, ~1,100,089 accounts)
- Was your data in the Wishbone (2020) breach? (2020, ~9,705,172 accounts)
- Was your data in the MeetMindful breach? (2020, ~1,422,717 accounts)