Impact & Downstream Threats
This breach carries high risk due to the nature of exposed data fields and the scale of affected records.
- SIM swap attacks where phone numbers are present
- Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses
Breach Intelligence
Executive Summary
In October 2020, a security researcher published a technique for scraping large volumes of data from Gravatar, the service for providing globally unique avatars . 167 million names, usernames and MD5 hashes of email addresses used to reference users' avatars were subsequently scraped and distributed within the hacking community. 114 million of the MD5 hashes were cracked and distributed alongside the source hash, thus disclosing the original email address and accompanying data. Following the impacted email addresses being searchable in HIBP, Gravatar release an FAQ detailing the incident.
About Gravatar
Global avatar service linked to email identities.
Data Points Exposed
Dark Web Verification
Status: Confirmed
- Dataset containing approximately 49.7M records identified in breach intelligence sources.
- The data is indexed and searchable across breach notification platforms.
Recommended Actions
⚠️ Do not assume this is low sensitivity.
Non-clients may request a breach impact review.
Frequently Asked Questions
In October 2020, Gravatar experienced a data breach that exposed approximately 49.7M records containing personal information.
The exposed data includes fields such as email address, full name, phone number, username.
Approximately 49.7M records were affected based on current breach intelligence.
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- A public-facing individual
- A high-profile executive
- A customer of Gravatar
- Or concerned about credential reuse
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