MyRecon OSINTHathway
Behind the exposed accounts
In December 2023, hundreds of gigabytes of data allegedly taken from Indian ISP and digital TV provider Hathway appeared on a popular hacking website .
Follow the story
On 17 December 2023, Hathway was breached. 4,670,080 accounts were exposed, including device information, email addresses, ip addresses. MyRecon rates it 69/100, severe. That is about 17% of the population of Australia.
How the story unfolded
Open a step to read the detail. Missing dates stay unknown.
02Entry point
The published account does not explain the exact way the data was obtained.
03Discovery and disclosure
A separate discovery or company-disclosure date is not established by this feed record.
04Added to the breach catalogue
2024-01-12. This is the catalogue date, not necessarily the disclosure date.
05Reported outcome
4,670,080 accounts are listed in this breach. This is a count of accounts, not necessarily individual people. The reported exposed data includes Device information, Email addresses, IP addresses, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Salutations, Support tickets.
The field that makes this one worse than its size suggests is the last one in the list: support ticket logs. Every other data class here is structured, a name goes in the name box, an address in the address box. A support ticket is whatever the customer typed while frustrated, which routinely includes account numbers, alternate phone numbers, details about who else lives at the address, and often a password, because people paste them in when asked to describe the problem.
An internet provider also holds a category of data almost nobody else does: the link between a person, a physical address and an IP address over time. That mapping is what turns an IP address found elsewhere into a name, and it is the single most useful record an ISP keeps from an investigative point of view.
For Indian subscribers specifically, the practical risk that follows is the support call that already knows your plan, your address and your last complaint. That is not a coincidence and it is not the provider calling.
The story behind the breach
In December 2023, hundreds of gigabytes of data allegedly taken from Indian ISP and digital TV provider Hathway appeared on a popular hacking website . The incident exposed extensive personal information including 4.7M unique email addresses along with names, physical and IP addresses, phone numbers, password hashes and support ticket logs.
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?
The published account does not establish the motive. We cannot tell what the attackers intended from the exposed data alone.
Reported demands or attempts to sell data describe what happened, rather than prove every attacker's intention.
What was the outcome?
4,670,080 accounts are listed in this breach. This is a count of accounts, not necessarily individual people.
The reported exposed data includes Device information, Email addresses, IP addresses, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Salutations, Support tickets.
What was exposed, and why it matters
Device information
Fingerprints a device across services and helps an attacker imitate a trusted login.
Email addresses
The address becomes a confirmed, active target, expect more phishing, better aimed.
IP addresses
Approximate location at the time of use, and a way to correlate accounts across services.
Names
Turns an anonymous address into an identified person, which is what makes targeted phishing possible.
Passwords
Anyone reusing this password elsewhere has those accounts exposed too, credential stuffing is automated and tries them all within days.
Phone numbers
Enables SIM-swap attacks against SMS two-factor codes, and puts the number on scam-call lists indefinitely.
Physical addresses
Where someone actually lives. Combined with a name this moves the risk off the internet.
Salutations
Adds detail to a profile that can be assembled from several breaches at once.
Support tickets
Adds detail to a profile that can be assembled from several breaches at once.
What to do if you were in it
Questions people ask about this breach
Was my email address in the Hathway 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 Hathway breach?
device information, email addresses, ip addresses, names, passwords, phone numbers, physical addresses, salutations, support tickets. 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 17 December 2023. It was published to Have I Been Pwned on 12 January 2024, a gap of 26 days during which the data was already out.
Is the Hathway 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?
4,670,080 accounts. That is about 17% of the population of Australia. 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.