Was your data in the HTC Mania breach?
Check whether your email address was in it
Check my exposureFree. No password — we email you a six-digit code. This breach and every other one your address appears in.
HTC Mania (htcmania.com) suffered a data breach in 2020 that exposed around 1,488,089 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 January 2020, the Spanish mobile phone forum HTC Mania suffered a data breach of the vBulletin based site. The incident exposed 1.5M member email addresses, usernames, IP addresses, dates of birth and salted MD5 password hashes and password histories. Data from the breach was subsequently redistributed on popular hacking websites.
Breach record from Have I Been Pwned, CC BY 4.0. 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 HTC Mania breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Also listed in this breach: Dates of birth, Email addresses, Historical passwords, IP addresses, Passwords, 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.
- Passwords
Change this password everywhere you have reused it, starting with your email account — whoever controls your email can reset everything else. - Dates of birth
Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number. - 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. - IP addresses
No direct action needed, but be wary of anyone quoting your location as “proof” of identity. - Confirm you were actually in it
Run a free scan 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.
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 HTC Mania breach?
The HTC Mania breach exposed passwords, dates of birth, 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 HTC Mania breach?
Around 1,488,089 accounts were exposed, making it a large breach.
What should I do if I had a HTC Mania 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 HTC Mania breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.