Data breaches → KM.RU
Was your data in the KM.RU breach?
2016 · km.ru · ~1,476,783 accounts exposedCritical severity · 8/10
KM.RU (km.ru) suffered a data breach in 2016 that exposed around 1,476,783 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 February 2016, the Russian portal and email service KM.RU was the target of an attack which was consequently detailed on Reddit. Allegedly protesting "the foreign policy of Russia in regards to Ukraine", KM.RU was one of several Russian sites in the breach and impacted almost 1.5M accounts including sensitive personal information.
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 KM.RU breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
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.
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.
Also listed in this breach: Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Geographic locations, Recovery email addresses, Security questions and answers, 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.
- 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.
- Location data: Review location sharing on the accounts you still hold with this service.
- 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 10 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 KM.RU breach?
The KM.RU breach exposed security questions and answers, dates of birth, location data, names and usernames, email addresses. Account-recovery answers let an attacker reset your password without ever knowing it — bypassing an otherwise strong password.
How many people were affected by the KM.RU breach?
Around 1,476,783 accounts were exposed, making it a large breach.
What should I do if I had a KM.RU account?
Change the answers on every account using them, and treat the answers as passwords (random strings stored in a password manager). 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 KM.RU breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Adult FriendFinder (2015) breach? (2015, ~3,867,997 accounts)
- Was your data in the Bitcoin Talk breach? (2015, ~501,407 accounts)
- Was your data in the Mate1.com breach? (2016, ~27,393,015 accounts)
- Was your data in the Bookmate breach? (2018, ~3,830,916 accounts)
- Was your data in the Ashley Madison breach? (2015, ~30,811,934 accounts)
- Was your data in the 500px breach? (2018, ~14,867,999 accounts)