Data breaches → Gravatar
Was your data in the Gravatar breach?
2020 · gravatar.com · ~113,990,759 accounts exposedModerate severity · 4/10
Gravatar (gravatar.com) suffered a data breach in 2020 that exposed around 113,990,759 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, a security researcher published a technique for scraping large volumes of data from Gravatar, the service for providing globally unique avatars . 167 million names, usernames and MD5 hashes of email addresses used to reference users' avatars were subsequently scraped and distributed within the hacking community. 114 million of the MD5 hashes were cracked and distributed alongside the source hash, thus disclosing the original email address and accompanying data. Following the impacted email addresses being searchable in HIBP, Gravatar release an FAQ detailing the incident.
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 Gravatar breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
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, Names, Usernames.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- 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 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 Gravatar breach?
The Gravatar breach exposed names and usernames, email addresses. Links this leak to your other accounts — a reused username lets anyone build a profile of you across platforms.
How many people were affected by the Gravatar breach?
Around 113,990,759 accounts were exposed, making it one of the largest breaches ever recorded.
What should I do if I had a Gravatar account?
Search your usual username to see what else it exposes, and use distinct handles for sensitive accounts. 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 Gravatar breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Wattpad breach? (2020, ~268,765,495 accounts)
- Was your data in the Canva breach? (2019, ~137,272,116 accounts)
- Was your data in the Twitter (200M) breach? (2021, ~211,524,284 accounts)
- Was your data in the Deezer breach? (2019, ~229,037,936 accounts)
- Was your data in the Wishbone (2020) breach? (2020, ~9,705,172 accounts)
- Was your data in the Zacks breach? (2020, ~8,929,503 accounts)