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medium severity May 01, 2018 · 1 min read

Linux Forums Data Breach (2018)

If you are a customer of Linux Forums, here’s what’s now in circulation.

In May 2018, the Linux Forums website suffered a data breach which resulted in the disclosure of 276k unique email addresses. Running on an old version of vBulletin, the breach also disclosed usernames, IP addresses and salted MD5 password hashes. Linux Forums did not respond to multiple attempts to contact them about the breach.

Linux Forums Data Breach (2018)

What the free scan actually returns

Sample resultyou@email.comIllustrative — not a real person

Found on people-search siteswe remove these

These listings are live, public, and legal to remove — and removing them is what we do.

value redacted in this sampleage, relatives, address historySpokeo
value redacted in this samplephone, household, property recordsBeenVerified
value redacted in this sample582 companies checked

Found in breach recordsverifiedreported — unverified

Each record is labeled: confirmed breach data, or an attacker’s claim no one has verified.

verifiedvalue redacted in this samplepassword + phone · 2024telecom breach
unverifiedvalue redacted in this sampleclaimed in ransomware listing · 2026leak-site claim

Leaked data cannot be deleted from the internet — anyone claiming otherwise is lying. Broker listings can be removed. We do the second, and show you exactly what to fix from the first.

Were you a Linux Forums customer?
Linux Forums is one listing. Your email is probably in others.
276K accounts were exposed here. Check whether yours is one — and find every other leak tied to the same address, in about 15 seconds. No account, no card.

By running your scan you agree to the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy, and to GalaxyWarden emailing you the results of this scan.

Report details & sourcing

Severity Medium
Disclosed May 01, 2018
Last reviewed July 22, 2026
Affected 276K
Data exposed Email addressesIP addressesPasswordsUsernames
By GalaxyWarden Threat Research · Editorial & sourcing standards
Editorial & sourcing policy
GalaxyWarden is a breach-monitoring service and news aggregator. We do not exfiltrate, host, purchase, or redistribute stolen data. Breach information is compiled from publicly accessible sources and threat-intelligence platforms, and is reported as claims attributed to their source. We promptly correct or remove material shown to be inaccurate — see our content & takedown policy or write to support@galaxywarden.com.
Sources: Have I Been Pwned
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