Data breaches → University of Pennsylvania
Was your data in the University of Pennsylvania breach?
2025 · upenn.edu · ~623,750 accounts exposedCritical severity · 9/10
University of Pennsylvania (upenn.edu) suffered a data breach in 2025 that exposed around 623,750 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 2025, the University of Pennsylvania was the victim of a data breach followed by a ransom demand, largely affecting its donor database. After the incident, the attackers sent inflammatory emails to some victims. The data was later published online in February 2026 and included 624k unique email addresses alongside names and physical addresses. For some donor records, additional personal information was exposed, including gender and date of birth. A small subset of records also contained religion, spouse name, estimated income and donation history.
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 University of Pennsylvania breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Special-category data under UK/EU GDPR. Exposure can lead to discrimination, extortion or targeted harassment, and cannot be undone.
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.
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: Charitable donations, Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Income levels, Job titles, Names, Physical addresses, Religions, Salutations, Spouses names.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Sensitive personal characteristics: Under UK/EU GDPR you have a strong right to erasure here — exercise it with the service and with any site republishing the data.
- 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.
- 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 University of Pennsylvania exposed sensitive personal characteristics and 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 recent, so the data is actively traded and the risk is at its highest right now.
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 University of Pennsylvania breach?
The University of Pennsylvania breach exposed sensitive personal characteristics, home addresses, dates of birth, names and usernames, email addresses. Special-category data under UK/EU GDPR. Exposure can lead to discrimination, extortion or targeted harassment, and cannot be undone.
How many people were affected by the University of Pennsylvania breach?
Around 623,750 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a University of Pennsylvania account?
Under UK/EU GDPR you have a strong right to erasure here — exercise it with the service and with any site republishing the data. 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 University of Pennsylvania breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Kreditplus breach? (2020, ~768,890 accounts)
- Was your data in the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail breach? (2021, ~5,470,063 accounts)
- Was your data in the Tappware breach? (2024, ~94,734 accounts)
- Was your data in the University of Nottingham breach? (2026, ~454,635 accounts)
- Was your data in the Exactis breach? (2018, ~131,577,763 accounts)
- Was your data in the Aman breach? (2026, ~215,563 accounts)