Data breaches → Romwe
Was your data in the Romwe breach?
2018 · romwe.com · ~19,531,820 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Romwe (romwe.com) suffered a data breach in 2018 that exposed around 19,531,820 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 mid-2018, the Hong Kong-based retailer Romwe suffered a data breach which exposed almost 20 million customers. The data was subsequently sold online and includes names, phone numbers, email and IP addresses, customer geographic locations and passwords stored as salted SHA-1 hashes. The data was provided to HIBP by dehashed.com.
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 Romwe 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.
Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.
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.
Reveals your approximate location and internet provider, which adds credibility to targeted scams.
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.
- Phone numbers: Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider.
- 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.
- 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 Romwe 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 8 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 Romwe breach?
The Romwe breach exposed passwords, home addresses, phone numbers, location data, names and usernames, 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 Romwe breach?
Around 19,531,820 accounts were exposed, making it a very large breach by any measure.
What should I do if I had a Romwe 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 Romwe breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Guntrader breach? (2021, ~112,031 accounts)
- Was your data in the Qatar National Bank breach? (2015, ~88,678 accounts)
- Was your data in the TheGradCafe breach? (2023, ~310,975 accounts)
- Was your data in the IIMJobs breach? (2018, ~4,216,063 accounts)
- Was your data in the bigbasket breach? (2020, ~24,500,011 accounts)
- Was your data in the Fashion Nexus breach? (2018, ~1,279,263 accounts)