Nexus Mods 2013 Data Breach
Platform · Video game modifications and downloads · Gaming content platform · Global
Nexus Mods Game Modding Platform Breach (2013, Disclosed 2015): 5.9 Million Modder Accounts Exposed
Gaming mod hosting platform.
Confirmed · ObscureIQ Intelligence
Breach Risk Index i
8/100
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.
5.9MRecords
2013Year
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
A Nexus Mods database dated to July 2013 was disclosed in December 2015 after circulating among criminal traders. The attacker compromised three mod-author accounts protected by very weak passwords and used them to upload malware to Nexus Mods servers, extracting a partial database of 5,915,013 records. Exposed data included usernames, email addresses, and passwords stored as salted hashes with their salts. No financial data was included.
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…
5.9M records analyzed
About Nexus Mods
Nexus Mods is a long-running online platform for hosting and distributing user-created game modifications, serving a large community of players and mod authors across many PC game titles.
Why They Hold Your Data
Gaming content platforms collect user accounts, emails, usernames, passwords, download history, upload activity, and community participation tied to game-mod distribution.
Recent Developments
Nexus Mods has continued to operate and grow as a leading modding hub. Payment processing is handled externally via PayPal, so no financial data resided in the affected database.
Data Points Exposed
3 verified field types
Email Address
Password High
Username
Breach Impact
Salted hashes slowed but did not prevent password recovery for weak credentials, exposing reused email/password pairs to credential-stuffing risk on other services.
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).
Protect Yourself
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