piZap 2017 Data Breach
Platform · Photo editing and design tools · Web-based creative platform · Global
piZap Online Photo Editing Platform Breach (2017): 41 Million User Accounts Including Passwords & Social Media Profiles Exposed
Online photo editing tool.
Confirmed · ObscureIQ Intelligence
Breach Risk Index i
19/100
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.
41.8MRecords
2017Year
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
piZap, an online photo editing and design platform, suffered a data breach in approximately December 2017 due to a misconfiguration. The compromised data was not publicly surfaced until February 2019, when it appeared for sale on a dark web marketplace alongside data from several other breached platforms. The breach affected 41.8 million user accounts. The exposed data included email addresses, names, usernames, genders, geographic locations, and website activity. Users who logged in via Facebook had their linked social media profiles exposed. Those who registered directly on piZap had their passwords exposed as SHA-1 hashes, a weak hashing algorithm that can be reversed with modest effort. Together, this combination of profile data and cross-platform identifiers allows attackers to build detailed pictures of individual users. No class-action litigation or regulatory enforcement specific to this breach has been documented. piZap did not make prominent public disclosures at the time the breach was discovered. Affected users face ongoing risks of account takeover, credential stuffing, and targeted phishing, particularly if they reused their piZap password on other services.
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…
41.8M records analyzed
About piZap
piZap is a web-based photo editing and graphic design tool offering collage creation, text overlays, filters, and design templates to casual users. The platform is free to use with premium subscription options and is particularly popular with social media users creating shareable image content. It operates as a consumer creative platform with a global user base.
Why They Hold Your Data
Web-based design platforms collect user accounts, emails, project metadata, billing records, and usage activity tied to casual creative workflows.
Recent Developments
piZap continues to operate as a free photo editing tool. No major organizational changes have been publicly reported in the period surrounding or following the breach.
Data Points Exposed
8 verified field types
Activity History
Email Address
Full Name
Gender
Geographic location
Password High
Social Media Profile
Username
Breach Impact
In approximately December 2017 piZap suffered a breach that was discovered later and placed for sale on dark web markets in February 2019 alongside a collection of other platform data. The exposed dataset contained 42 million unique email addresses along with usernames, full names, genders, geographic locations, linked social media profiles, browsing activity data, and passwords. piZap did not make prominent public statements about the breach at the time of its discovery. No class-action litigation or regulatory action specific to this incident has been documented in public sources.
Exploitation & Downstream Threats
• Credential stuffing against reused passwords across other platforms | • Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses | • Doxxing risk from physical address exposure | • Social media account targeting and impersonation
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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