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Explore Talent users were affected by two distinct data exposure incidents that together exposed millions of personal records. One breach, publicly posted on a hacking forum, contained 5.7 million rows and 5.4 million unique email addresses; reporting tied the underlying compromise to a period between early 2022 and 2023. The leaked data included names, phone numbers, and physical addresses, indicating broad exposure of personally identifiable information.
A separate incident later uncovered multiple security vulnerabilities across online services that included Explore Talent, with one vulnerable API exposing the personal records of 11.4 million users. Data from that exposure supplied 8.9 million unique email addresses to Have I Been Pwned, which noted that the API-related incident was distinct from the earlier Explore Talent breach. The disclosures show repeated security failures affecting the talent network and significantly expanding the pool of impacted users.
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4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
On 2026-03-18, Have I Been Pwned published entries for two separate Explore Talent incidents: a July 2024 leak tied to an earlier 2022-2023 breach and a distinct August 2024 API exposure. The listings documented the scale and distinct nature of both events.
In August 2024, multiple security vulnerabilities were identified across online services including Explore Talent. One vulnerable API exposed the personal records of 11.4 million users, and 8.9 million unique email addresses from the data were later provided to Have I Been Pwned.
In July 2024, data attributed to Explore Talent was publicly posted on a popular hacking forum. The leaked dataset reportedly contained 5.7 million rows and 5.4 million unique email addresses.
Various sources described an underlying Explore Talent data breach as having taken place sometime between early 2022 and 2023. The incident reportedly exposed personal data including names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and email addresses.
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Cybersecurity researchers reported a major exposure at **IDMerit**, an AI-driven identity verification provider, after discovering an unsecured, internet-accessible **MongoDB** instance containing **over 3 billion records** (over 1TB). Exposed data reportedly included full names, addresses, dates of birth, national ID numbers, phone numbers, and email addresses; researchers estimated roughly **~1 billion** records contained sensitive data (with duplicates likely inflating the total). The dataset was described as global in scope, affecting individuals across **26 countries**, with large volumes attributed to the **US, Mexico, and the Philippines**, creating downstream risk for **identity fraud, account takeover, phishing, and SIM-swap** activity. Separately, Australian finance technology platform **youX** confirmed an **unauthorized third-party access** incident, after which a hacker claimed theft of data tied to **444,528** Australian borrowers and additional loan-application and identity data (including driver’s licence numbers, addresses, and credit/banking-related information), plus customer/staff details associated with broker organizations. **Substack** also confirmed unauthorized access to **limited user data** (including email addresses, phone numbers, and internal account metadata) that occurred in **October 2025** but was only identified on **Feb. 3, 2026**; Substack stated **passwords and payment card/financial data were not accessed**, but the extended detection gap raised concerns about monitoring and dwell time.
Jun 29, 2026
SoundCloud confirmed unauthorized access to an internal/ancillary service dashboard that enabled attackers to correlate **hidden email addresses** with information already visible on public SoundCloud profiles, impacting roughly **29.8 million accounts** (about **20%** of its user base). Exposed data was primarily **email addresses** plus public-profile metadata (e.g., usernames/display names, avatars, follower/following counts, and other profile statistics); SoundCloud stated **no passwords or financial data** were accessed. Users also reported service disruptions around the time of the incident, including access issues such as `403 Forbidden` errors (notably when connecting via VPN), consistent with post-incident security changes and response actions. Reporting attributed the intrusion and subsequent extortion attempt to the **ShinyHunters** group, with SoundCloud later acknowledging the actor made demands and used harassment tactics such as **email flooding**. The stolen dataset was subsequently leaked and then added to *Have I Been Pwned* for exposure checking, increasing downstream risk of targeted phishing and account-takeover attempts via credential stuffing on other services where users may have reused emails as identifiers. Separate contemporaneous claims by ShinyHunters against other companies (e.g., Panera Bread, CarMax, Edmunds) were reported but are distinct from the confirmed SoundCloud incident and include different alleged access vectors (e.g., stolen SSO codes).
Jun 29, 2026
Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), the widely used data breach notification service, has indexed nearly 2 billion unique email addresses and 1.3 billion passwords from newly obtained datasets, marking the largest single update in the platform's history. The data, sourced in part from threat intelligence provider Synthient, includes both stealer log data—collected by malware from infected machines—and credential stuffing lists, which are typically compiled from previous breaches and used to facilitate unauthorized access to accounts across multiple services. This update brings the total number of accounts tracked by HIBP to over 15 billion, significantly expanding the visibility of exposed credentials for individuals and organizations. The newly indexed records include 183 million unique email addresses uploaded on October 21, as well as a much larger corpus totaling nearly 2 billion addresses and 1.3 billion passwords, 625 million of which were previously unseen. Users are encouraged to check their exposure using HIBP's free search tools and to take immediate action if their credentials are found, such as changing passwords and enabling multi-factor authentication. The scale and diversity of the data highlight the ongoing risks of password reuse and the importance of proactive credential management to mitigate the threat of account takeover attacks.
Jul 12, 2026