Data breaches → Stratfor
Was your data in the Stratfor breach?
2011 · stratfor.com · ~859,777 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Stratfor (stratfor.com) suffered a data breach in 2011 that exposed around 859,777 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 December 2011, "Anonymous" attacked the global intelligence company known as "Stratfor" and consequently disclosed a veritable treasure trove of data including hundreds of gigabytes of email and tens of thousands of credit card details which were promptly used by the attackers to make charitable donations (among other uses). The breach also included 860,000 user accounts complete with email address, time zone, some internal system data and MD5 hashed passwords with no salt.
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 Stratfor breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Direct financial fraud, plus convincing scam calls that quote your real card or account details to establish trust.
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.
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: Credit cards, Email addresses, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, 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.
- Payment or bank details: Contact your bank, ask them to monitor or reissue the card, and check statements for small “test” transactions.
- 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.
- 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 Stratfor 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 15 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 Stratfor breach?
The Stratfor breach exposed payment or bank details, passwords, home addresses, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses. Direct financial fraud, plus convincing scam calls that quote your real card or account details to establish trust.
How many people were affected by the Stratfor breach?
Around 859,777 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a Stratfor account?
Contact your bank, ask them to monitor or reissue the card, and check statements for small “test” transactions. 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 Stratfor breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Vodafone breach? (2013, ~56,021 accounts)
- Was your data in the The Fly on the Wall breach? (2017, ~84,011 accounts)
- Was your data in the JobStreet breach? (2012, ~3,883,455 accounts)
- Was your data in the Sony breach? (2011, ~37,103 accounts)
- Was your data in the Genesis Market breach? (2023, ~8,000,000 accounts)
- Was your data in the Foxy Bingo breach? (2008, ~252,216 accounts)