ApexSMS 2019 Data Breach
Cybercrime / Spam Infrastructure
ApexSMS 2019 Data Breach
A spam infrastructure service in the cybercrime sector.
Confirmed · ObscureIQ Intelligence
Breach Risk Index i
43/100
Lower riskHigher risk
Moderate: notable exposure with meaningful misuse potential.
Data Sensitivity i
StandardExposed data is largely lower-sensitivity. Standard identity-protection precautions are advised.
88.4MRecords
2019Year
The Breach Risk Index (BRI) is a proprietary 0–100 score rating how dangerous a breach is right now, based on how recently the data has been circulating on the dark web and how valuable it is to attackers.
Crucial data exposed
AddressPhysical address
Breach Summary
In May 2019, news broke of a massive SMS spam operation known as "ApexSMS" which was discovered after a MongoDB instance of the same name was found exposed without a password. The incident leaked over 80M records with 23M unique email addresses alongside names, phone numbers and carriers, geographic locations (state and country), genders and IP addresses.
Full threat analysis, exploitation vectors, and principal guidance below.
10 additional sections · verified field analysis · defensive doctrine
Querying breach corpus…
Cross-referencing exposed field types…
Resolving threat-actor attribution…
Compiling principal risk advisory…
88.4M records analyzed
About ApexSMS
ApexSMS is a spam infrastructure service in the cybercrime sector.
Why They Hold Your Data
ApexSMS is a spam infrastructure service in the cybercrime sector. Services like this typically hold email addresses, ethnicity or race, names, gender, location data, IP addresses, mobile carrier, phone numbers, physical addresses through account registration and normal operations.
Recent Developments
The ApexSMS dataset circulated publicly; treat as part of the standing exposure landscape.
Data Points Exposed
8 verified field types
Email Address
Full Name
Gender
Geographic location
IP Address
Phone Number
Physical address High
Telecom Carrier
Breach Impact
The exposure created downstream fraud and phishing risk for those affected and drew scrutiny of ApexSMS's data protection.
Exploitation & Downstream Threats
• SIM swap attacks where phone numbers are present | • Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses | • Doxxing risk from physical address exposure
Principal Risk Advisory
What this means for a principal
A consumer-service breach: contact and account data supports phishing, account takeover and profile enrichment. For a high-profile principal this is targeting-grade, not merely identity-theft-grade: the combination lets an adversary locate, impersonate, or pressure the principal with little additional work.
What You Should Do
- Treat the home address as exposed: review mail and package handling and physical-security routines, and brief household staff to verify unusual requests.
- Guard against SIM-swap and vishing: add a carrier port-out PIN and verify any 'support' calls independently.
- Do not use unofficial 'am I affected' lookups; several are themselves harvesting operations.
How ObscureIQ Can Help
- Corpus confirmation: determine whether and where the principal (plus household and staff) appear in this dataset and which specific fields are exposed for them.
- Exposure mapping and footprint neutralization: cross-reference against broker-available data and suppress still-removable elements, prioritizing address and phone, since this record re-seeds broker networks.
- ThreatWatch tuned to this incident's identifiers and misuse pattern (impersonation and targeting patterns, not generic credential monitoring).
Protect Yourself
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