9Lives 2014.0 Data Breach
ObscureIQ Breach Intelligence
Low SeverityWebsite / service breach
9Lives Belgian Gaming Community Breach (2014): 100K User Accounts Including Passwords Exposed
Gaming news and enthusiast community content.
Verified by ObscureIQ Intelligence
17/100Breach Risk Index
3Data Value
25Market Recency
518dSince Breach
Breach Intelligence Summary
Entity: 9Lives · Actor: Unknown · Sources: 3 references
Attack: Unknown
Profile: Platform · Gaming news and enthusiast community content · Gaming news forum · Belgium
Timeline: Breach (2014-10-01) · Indexed (Feb 05, 2025) · Year (2014.0)
Exposure: 100K records · 3 fields: Email Address, Password, Username
Status: Confirmed
Executive Summary
In October 2014, the (now defunct) Belgian gaming-news forum 9Lives suffered a data breach that later circulated within a larger corpus. It exposed roughly 100,000-109,000 accounts including usernames, email addresses, and passwords stored as salted MD5 hashes.
ObscureIQ assessment: Exposure enables phishing, harassment, and identity linkage through gaming-community activity. Archived forum data can also resurface long-dormant usernames and relationships.
Breach Impact
Salted MD5 is crackable, exposing reused credentials to stuffing; the small, older forum set is low-to-moderate risk.
About 9Lives
9Lives was a Belgian gaming-news forum and community, now defunct.
Why They Hold Your Data
Gaming news forums collect user accounts, emails, discussion history, and community activity tied to enthusiast content and player participation.
Data Points Exposed
3 verified field types
Email Address
Password Critical
Username
Field names are shown in full for clarity and search visibility. Canonical machine keys are emitted only in this page’s structured data.
Exploitation & Downstream Threats
Threat Activity:Low
Primary downstream threats:
- Credential stuffing against reused passwords across other platforms
- Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses
Threat vectors:
- Phishing, credential stuffing & account takeover
- Credential stuffing & account takeover
- Cross-platform tracking & credential stuffing
Recommended Actions
If you believe your information may be included:
Change Reused Passwords
Update this account and anywhere you reused the password; use a manager.
Enable MFA Everywhere
Turn on multi-factor authentication on email first, then financial accounts.
Report & Recover
If you spot misuse, start an official recovery plan and report fraud.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in the 9Lives breach?▾
In October 2014, the (now defunct) Belgian gaming-news forum 9Lives suffered a data breach that later circulated within a larger corpus. It exposed roughly 100,000-109,000 accounts including usernames, email addresses, and passwords stored as salted MD5 hashes.
What data was exposed?▾
Verified fields include Email Address, Password, Username.
What should I do if I was affected?▾
Change reused passwords, enable MFA, and (if identity or financial data is involved) freeze your credit and monitor your accounts.
Sources & References
Every claim on this page is traceable. This breach draws on:
Breach Index
Breach Index
ObscureIQ Intelligence
ObscureIQ proprietary analysis
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