Data breaches → Health Now Networks
Was your data in the Health Now Networks breach?
2017 · healthnow.co · ~321,920 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Health Now Networks (healthnow.co) suffered a data breach in 2017 that exposed around 321,920 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 March 2017, the telemarketing service Health Now Networks left a database containing hundreds of thousands of medical records exposed. There were over 900,000 records in total containing significant volumes of personal information including names, dates of birth, various medical conditions and operator notes on the individuals' health. The data included over 320k 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 Health Now Networks breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Special-category data under UK/EU GDPR. Exposure can lead to discrimination, extortion or targeted harassment, and cannot be undone.
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.
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.
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, Health insurance information, IP addresses, Names, Personal health data, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Security questions and answers, Social connections.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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 Health Now Networks exposed sensitive personal characteristics and 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 9 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 Health Now Networks breach?
The Health Now Networks breach exposed sensitive personal characteristics, home addresses, security questions and answers, dates of birth, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses, ip addresses. Special-category data under UK/EU GDPR. Exposure can lead to discrimination, extortion or targeted harassment, and cannot be undone.
How many people were affected by the Health Now Networks breach?
Around 321,920 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a Health Now Networks account?
Under UK/EU GDPR you have a strong right to erasure here — exercise it with the service and with any site republishing the data. 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 Health Now Networks breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Neteller breach? (2010, ~3,619,948 accounts)
- Was your data in the Fashion Nexus breach? (2018, ~1,279,263 accounts)
- Was your data in the Qatar National Bank breach? (2015, ~88,678 accounts)
- Was your data in the CyberServe breach? (2021, ~1,107,034 accounts)
- Was your data in the ClearVoice Surveys breach? (2015, ~15,074,786 accounts)
- Was your data in the Modern Business Solutions breach? (2016, ~58,843,488 accounts)