Data breaches → pcTattletale
Was your data in the pcTattletale breach?
2024 · pctattletale.com · ~138,751 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
pcTattletale (pctattletale.com) suffered a data breach in 2024 that exposed around 138,751 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 May 2024, the spyware service pcTattletale suffered a data breach that defaced the website and posted tens of gigabytes of data to the homepage, allegedly due to pcTattletale not responding to a previous security vulnerability report. The breach exposed data including membership records, infected PC names, captured messages and extensive logs of IP addresses and device 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 pcTattletale breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Attackers replay leaked passwords across other sites (“credential stuffing”). Because most people reuse passwords, one leak often unlocks email, shopping and banking accounts elsewhere.
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.
Personal correspondence can be used for blackmail or social engineering, and often contains other sensitive details you have forgotten sharing.
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: Device information, Email addresses, IP addresses, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, SMS messages, 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.
- Home addresses: Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating.
- Private messages: Consider what was discussed on this service and whether anything needs changing (shared passwords, personal disclosures).
- 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.
- 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 pcTattletale 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 data has been circulating for around 2 years, which means it has been copied, combined with other leaks and indexed by search tools many times over.
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 pcTattletale breach?
The pcTattletale breach exposed passwords, home addresses, private messages, phone numbers, 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 pcTattletale breach?
Around 138,751 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a pcTattletale 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 pcTattletale breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the TheGradCafe breach? (2023, ~310,975 accounts)
- Was your data in the Vodafone breach? (2013, ~56,021 accounts)
- Was your data in the SUCCESS breach? (2026, ~253,510 accounts)
- Was your data in the Zacks (2024) breach? (2024, ~11,994,223 accounts)
- Was your data in the Hathway breach? (2023, ~4,670,080 accounts)
- Was your data in the The Post Millennial breach? (2024, ~56,973,345 accounts)