Data breaches → Zurich
Was your data in the Zurich breach?
2023 · zurich.co.jp · ~756,737 accounts exposedHigh severity · 7/10
Zurich (zurich.co.jp) suffered a data breach in 2023 that exposed around 756,737 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 January 2023, the Japanese arm of Zurich insurance suffered a data breach that exposed 2.6M customer records with over 756k unique email addresses. The data was subsequently posted to a popular hacking forum and also included names, genders, dates of birth and details of insured vehicles.
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 Zurich breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
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: Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Names, Vehicle details.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- 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.
How urgent is this now?
This data has been circulating for around 3 years, which means it has been copied, combined with other leaks and indexed by search tools many times over.
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 Zurich breach?
The Zurich breach exposed dates of birth, names and usernames, email addresses. 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.
How many people were affected by the Zurich breach?
Around 756,737 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a Zurich account?
Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number. 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 Zurich breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the Royal Enfield breach? (2019, ~420,873 accounts)
- Was your data in the Dymocks breach? (2023, ~836,120 accounts)
- Was your data in the HDB Financial Services breach? (2023, ~1,658,750 accounts)
- Was your data in the RentoMojo breach? (2023, ~2,185,697 accounts)
- Was your data in the Planet Ice breach? (2023, ~240,488 accounts)
- Was your data in the Ubook breach? (2024, ~699,908 accounts)