MyRecon OSINT
Crunchbase
On 22 January 2026, Crunchbase was breached. 559,908 accounts were exposed, including email addresses, employers, job titles. MyRecon rates it 57/100, serious.
The story behind the breach
In January 2026, the private company intelligence platform Crunchbase was targeted in a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion attempt . Data allegedly obtained from the company was subsequently published publicly and included 560k unique email addresses, largely belonging to leads and business contacts. Other data included names, physical addresses, phone numbers, job titles, employers and LinkedIn profiles. Crunchbase later confirmed that a threat actor had exfiltrated documents from its corporate network.
Breach description from Have I Been Pwned, used under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
How did it happen?
The published account does not explain the exact way the data was obtained.
What was the motive?
In January 2026, the private company intelligence platform Crunchbase was targeted in a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion attempt .
Reported demands or attempts to sell data describe what happened, rather than prove every attacker's intention.
What was the outcome?
559,908 accounts are listed in this breach. This is a count of accounts, not necessarily individual people.
The reported exposed data includes Email addresses, Employers, Job titles, Names, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Social media profiles.
What was exposed, and why it matters
- Email addressesThe address becomes a confirmed, active target, expect more phishing, better aimed.
- EmployersConnects a personal account to a workplace, which is how attackers pivot from a person to a company.
- Job titlesIdentifies who has access to what, which is how targets for business email compromise are picked.
- NamesTurns an anonymous address into an identified person, which is what makes targeted phishing possible.
- Phone numbersEnables SIM-swap attacks against SMS two-factor codes, and puts the number on scam-call lists indefinitely.
- Physical addressesWhere someone actually lives. Combined with a name this moves the risk off the internet.
- Social media profilesAdds detail to a profile that can be assembled from several breaches at once.
What to do if you were in it
- Move two-factor authentication off SMS and onto an authenticator app, which a SIM swap cannot intercept.
- Be sceptical of post and callers who already know your address, knowing it is no longer evidence of anything.
- Expect better-aimed phishing. A message that already knows your name and where you have an account is the whole point of a breach like this.
Questions people ask about this breach
Was my email address in the Crunchbase breach?
Use the email box on this page. The result applies only to this incident. If the provider does not cover this breach, we say so. A missing match does not prove you were unaffected.
What data was leaked in the Crunchbase breach?
email addresses, employers, job titles, names, phone numbers, physical addresses, social media profiles. Each one is explained above, along with what it means for the person it belongs to.
When did it happen, and when did it become public?
The breach is dated 22 January 2026. It was published to Have I Been Pwned on 14 October 2026, a gap of 265 days during which the data was already out.
Is the Crunchbase breach real?
Yes. Have I Been Pwned lists it as verified, meaning the data was checked against the source rather than taken on trust.
How many people were affected?
559,908 accounts. That is accounts rather than people, one person often has several.
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Three kinds of content appear on this page and they are kept apart deliberately. The breach description is quoted from Have I Been Pwned under its licence. The severity score, the field-by-field explanation and the advice are computed from the record itself, every sentence derives from a number or a flag in it, which is what stops the analysis drifting from the evidence. Anything under the "MyRecon's take" byline is editorial: our reading of this breach, presented as opinion rather than as a finding.