Avast 2014 Data Breach
Cybersecurity / Security Community
Avast 2014 Data Breach
A security community service in the cybersecurity sector.
Confirmed · ObscureIQ Intelligence
Breach Risk Index i
25/100
Lower riskHigher risk
Lower: limited current risk based on data value and recency.
Data Sensitivity i
StandardExposed data is largely lower-sensitivity. Standard identity-protection precautions are advised.
423KRecords
2014Year
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.
Breach Summary
In May 2014, the Avast anti-virus forum was hacked, exposing member records from the Simple Machines Based forum.
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…
423K records analyzed
About Avast
Avast is a security community service in the cybersecurity sector.
Why They Hold Your Data
Avast is a security community service in the cybersecurity sector. Services like this typically hold email addresses, passwords, usernames through account registration and normal operations.
Recent Developments
The Avast dataset circulated publicly; treat as part of the standing exposure landscape.
Data Points Exposed
3 verified field types
Email Address
Password High
Username
Breach Impact
The exposure of credentials alongside personal data heightened account-takeover and reuse risk for Avast users and drew scrutiny of its data protection.
Exploitation & Downstream Threats
• Credential stuffing against reused passwords across other platforms | • Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses
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 the main risk is credible impersonation and enrichment of existing exposure.
What You Should Do
- Reset any reused passwords and enable MFA on email first, then financial accounts.
- 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: cross-reference the exposed identifiers against broker-available data to size and prioritize the principal's wider footprint.
- ThreatWatch tuned to this incident's identifiers and misuse pattern (impersonation and targeting patterns, not generic credential monitoring).
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