Data breaches → Modern Business Solutions
Was your data in the Modern Business Solutions breach?
2016 · modbsolutions.com · ~58,843,488 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Modern Business Solutions (modbsolutions.com) suffered a data breach in 2016 that exposed around 58,843,488 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 2016, a large Mongo DB file containing tens of millions of accounts was shared publicly on Twitter (the file has since been removed). The database contained over 58M unique email addresses along with IP addresses, names, home addresses, genders, job titles, dates of birth and phone numbers. The data was subsequently attributed to "Modern Business Solutions", a company that provides data storage and database hosting solutions. They've yet to acknowledge the incident or explain how they came to be in possession of the data.
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 Modern Business Solutions breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
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.
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, IP addresses, Job titles, Names, Phone numbers, Physical addresses.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Home addresses: Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating.
- 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.
- 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.
This breach put your details on data-broker sites
Because Modern Business Solutions 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 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 Modern Business Solutions breach?
The Modern Business Solutions breach exposed home addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses, ip addresses. 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.
How many people were affected by the Modern Business Solutions breach?
Around 58,843,488 accounts were exposed, making it a very large breach by any measure.
What should I do if I had a Modern Business Solutions account?
Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating. 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 Modern Business Solutions breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Verifications.io breach? (2019, ~763,117,241 accounts)
- Was your data in the VNG breach? (2015, ~24,853,850 accounts)
- Was your data in the ClearVoice Surveys breach? (2015, ~15,074,786 accounts)
- Was your data in the Exactis breach? (2018, ~131,577,763 accounts)
- Was your data in the Master Deeds breach? (2017, ~2,257,930 accounts)
- Was your data in the COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach? (2016, ~228,605 accounts)