hemmelig.com Data Breach (2011): What Was Exposed & What To Do

In December 2011, the Norwegian online retailer hemmelig.com suffered a data breach that exposed records belonging to more than 28,000 users. The incident was publicly reported on 21 December 2011 and involved the disclosure of usernames, email addresses, nicknames, genders, year-of-birth information and unsalted MD5 password hashes. The breach occurred when an external party obtained and later circulated the data. No further technical details about the method of access or the precise volume of records have been confirmed in public reporting.

What happened

Public records state that the hemmelig.com platform was accessed without authorization during December 2011. A collective identifying itself as Team Appunity claimed responsibility for obtaining the data and making portions of it available. The exposed material included usernames, email addresses, nicknames, genders, partial birth dates and unsalted MD5 password hashes. The total number of affected accounts is reported as approximately 29,000. No information has been released about the duration of unauthorized access or whether additional internal systems were examined.

How a breach like this happens

Incidents involving the extraction of user account data from web platforms commonly begin with the exploitation of application vulnerabilities, weak authentication controls or compromised administrative credentials. Once initial access is obtained, an attacker can query databases that store customer records. In older systems, passwords were frequently stored as unsalted MD5 hashes, a format that permits rapid offline testing of common passwords. After extraction, the data may be published or shared among multiple parties. The exact sequence in any single case remains unknown unless a detailed forensic report is issued.

Who is hemmelig.com?

Hemmelig.com operated as an online retailer specializing in adult products and was described at the time as Norway’s largest shop of its kind. Organizations in this sector routinely collect account details, contact information and payment data to process orders and manage customer accounts. A breach at such a service therefore involves records that users typically regard as sensitive because of the nature of the merchandise and the expectation of privacy surrounding the transactions.

What data was at risk

The data types confirmed as exposed are email addresses, usernames, nicknames, genders, year of birth and unsalted MD5 password hashes. No public statement has clarified whether additional fields such as full names, physical addresses or payment card details were also obtained. Because the exact contents of the dataset remain unconfirmed beyond the listed categories, the full scope of personal information placed at risk cannot be determined from available information.

The real-world impact

Individuals whose email addresses and password hashes were exposed face the possibility that attackers will attempt to reuse those credentials on other sites. Unsalted MD5 hashes can be tested against dictionaries of common passwords with modest computing resources, increasing the likelihood that some accounts may be accessed. The combination of email addresses with gender and birth-year data also creates opportunities for targeted phishing or unwanted contact. For the organization, the incident required notification to affected users and remediation of the underlying access issue, though the costs or operational changes that followed have not been disclosed.

Were you affected?

Users who created an account on hemmelig.com before the end of 2011 should assume their email address and a password hash may have been included in the exposed material. A practical first step is to change the password on any account that reused the same credential and to enable multi-factor authentication where available. Individuals can also submit their email address to a reputable breach-monitoring service to determine whether it appears in known public datasets from this or other incidents.

AICompiled with AI assistance from public sources and published under our editorial standards.