Massive data breach exposes over 200 million X users' email addresses on hacker forum

A major data breach has reportedly impacted X, exposing the information of over 200 million users. Cybersecurity group SafetyDetectives found the leak on BreachForums, a well-known hacker forum, where a user named ThinkingOne shared a 34 GB .CSV file. This file contains over 201 million entries of X user data, including email addresses, account creation dates, display names, and tweet counts.

SafetyDetectives verified a sample of the leaked data, confirming that the email addresses correspond to existing X accounts. The origin of the breach remains unknown, but ThinkingOne suggests it results from a 2023 breach affecting up to 2.8 billion X accounts (likely including bots and inactive accounts), potentially making it the largest social media data breach ever.

Although the leak doesn't include passwords or phone numbers, the exposed email addresses and metadata increase the risk of targeted attacks. The metadata includes past display names, tweet counts, and location data. ThinkingOne cross-referenced the 2025 leak with data from the 2023 breach to create a dataset of 201 million active users with previously compromised email addresses, enabling highly targeted scams, phishing campaigns, or impersonation attacks using real emails and detailed behavioral metadata. Attempts to contact X have reportedly gone unanswered.