Wattpad Data Breach (2020): What Was Exposed & What To Do

Data breaches affecting online platforms that store personal details of hundreds of millions of users remain a recurring feature of the digital environment. In June 2020, the user-generated stories platform Wattpad was subject to an incident that exposed records associated with 268.8 million accounts. The event was reported on 29 June 2020, with the data later appearing on a public forum after initial sale.

What happened

The incident involved the exposure of nearly 270 million user records from Wattpad. Public reporting at the time indicated that the data was first offered for sale and subsequently posted on a hacking forum, where it circulated further. The breach was described as having occurred in June 2020, though the precise date of the intrusion and the method of access were not detailed in available accounts.

How a breach like this happens

Incidents involving large user databases often begin with unauthorised access to an organisation’s systems through vulnerabilities in applications, weak authentication controls, or compromised credentials of staff or contractors. Once inside, an attacker may locate and extract tables containing user information. The data can then be packaged and distributed through underground channels or public forums, increasing the chance that copies spread beyond the initial point of disclosure.

About Wattpad

Wattpad operates as a platform where individuals publish and read original stories. Services of this kind routinely collect account details to support registration, content personalisation, and community features. A breach at such a site is consequential because the volume of records can be substantial and the information may include elements that persist across other online services, such as email addresses and passwords.

The information in question

The records associated with the incident included bios, dates of birth, email addresses, genders, geographic locations, IP addresses, names, and passwords stored as bcrypt hashes. No further confirmation has been provided on whether additional fields were present or whether every record contained all listed elements.

What's at stake

Individuals whose information appeared in the dataset face the possibility that email addresses and passwords could be tested against other accounts they maintain. Hashed passwords require computational effort to attempt reversal, yet older or reused credentials remain at higher risk. The presence of dates of birth, locations, and usernames can also support targeted follow-on activity such as phishing or account recovery attempts. For the organisation, the event highlights the long-term costs of managing large volumes of user data and responding to subsequent misuse.

What to do if you're exposed

Anyone concerned should change passwords on Wattpad and any other service where the same credentials may have been used. Enabling multi-factor authentication where available adds a further layer of protection. Monitoring email accounts for unusual login attempts or unsolicited messages is advisable. Individuals can also run a free exposure scan of their email address against known breach datasets to determine whether their information has appeared in this or other incidents.

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