Data breaches → GoldSilver
Was your data in the GoldSilver breach?
2018 · goldsilver.com · ~242,715 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
GoldSilver (goldsilver.com) suffered a data breach in 2018 that exposed around 242,715 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 2018, the bullion education and dealer services site GoldSilver suffered a data breach that exposed 243k unique email addresses spanning customers and mailing list subscribers. An extensive amount of personal information on customers was obtained including names, addresses, phone numbers, purchases and passwords and answers to security questions stored as MD5 hashes. In a small number of cases, passport, social security numbers and partial credit card data was also exposed. The data breach and source code belonging to GoldSilver was publicly posted on a dark web service where it remained months later. When notified about the incident, GoldSilver advised that "all affected customers have been directly notified".
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 GoldSilver breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Direct financial fraud, plus convincing scam calls that quote your real card or account details to establish trust.
The strongest identity-theft material there is — enough to open credit accounts or file fraudulent claims in your name.
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.
Account-recovery answers let an attacker reset your password without ever knowing it — bypassing an otherwise strong password.
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.
Reveals your approximate location and internet provider, which adds credibility to targeted scams.
Also listed in this breach: Bank account numbers, Email addresses, IP addresses, Names, Partial credit card data, Passport numbers, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Purchases, Security questions and answers, Social security numbers.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Payment or bank details: Contact your bank, ask them to monitor or reissue the card, and check statements for small “test” transactions.
- Government identifiers: Consider a credit freeze or fraud alert with the credit reference agencies, and watch for accounts you did not open.
- Home addresses: Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating.
- Security questions and answers: Change the answers on every account using them, and treat the answers as passwords (random strings stored in a password manager).
- Phone numbers: Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider.
- 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 GoldSilver 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 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 GoldSilver breach?
The GoldSilver breach exposed payment or bank details, government identifiers, home addresses, security questions and answers, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses, ip addresses. Direct financial fraud, plus convincing scam calls that quote your real card or account details to establish trust.
How many people were affected by the GoldSilver breach?
Around 242,715 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a GoldSilver account?
Contact your bank, ask them to monitor or reissue the card, and check statements for small “test” transactions. 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 GoldSilver breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Regpack breach? (2016, ~104,977 accounts)
- Was your data in the Bonobos breach? (2020, ~2,811,929 accounts)
- Was your data in the Viva Air breach? (2022, ~932,232 accounts)
- Was your data in the PayHere breach? (2022, ~1,580,249 accounts)
- Was your data in the Canada Goose breach? (2025, ~581,877 accounts)
- Was your data in the University of Nottingham breach? (2026, ~454,635 accounts)