Straffic

What Happened

In February 2020, Israeli marketing company Straffic exposed a database containing 140GB of personal data. 

The publicly accessible Elasticsearch database held over 300 million rows, including 49 million unique email addresses, along with names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and genders. 

In their breach disclosure, Straffic stated that no system can stay completely secure and that incidents like this can happen.

How to Stay Safe

1. Change the password on your email account
Since this leak exposed email addresses, updating your email password will reduce the risk of someone trying to access your inbox. This is especially important if you use the same password on other websites. 

Follow one of our step-by-step guides depending on which email provider you use:

How to Change Your Gmail Password

How to Change Your Yahoo Password

How to Change Your AOL Password

How to Change Your iCloud Password

How to Change Your Hotmail or Outlook Password

How to Change Your Email Password (for other Email Accounts)

Then, turn on Two-Step Verification while you're there, so your account is harder to access even if your password is compromised again in the future. You’ll also find how to do that by clicking the links above.

2. Be careful with unfamiliar contacts
Since this breach included names, phone numbers, and physical addresses, watch out for suspicious calls, texts, or emails that reference your personal details to seem legitimate.

Why This Breach Matters

Even though this breach happened back in 2020, leaked data doesn't just expire. It keeps getting bought, sold, and reused by scammers. 

And even if you've never used this exact site before, your email may have still ended up in it through a partner, data broker, or another service behind the scenes. 

If you've ever reused this password anywhere else, it's worth taking a minute to secure it now.