IndiaMART, Estante Virtual and others fall victim of data leaks.

A total of 55 breach events were found and analysed resulting in 31,704,767 exposed accounts containing a total of 12 different data types of personal datum . The breaches found publicly and freely available included IndiaMART, Estante Virtual, MMORG, Hacker Forum and GGumim. Sign in to view the full library of breach events which includes, where available, reference articles relating to each breach.

Data Breach Analysis

The breaches span multiple industries and sectors, including B2B marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, online forums, gaming environments, design tools, and digital media services. The wide range of platforms highlights the breadth of online environments in which personal data continues to be vulnerable and exposed.

Industry Overview and Context

One of the major industries represented is B2B commerce, illustrated by the inclusion of IndiaMART, a leading Indian online marketplace connecting suppliers and buyers. IndiaMART serves millions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and buyers within India and internationally. A data breach from such a platform not only affects individual business representatives but can also introduce supply chain risks. Companies that use such platforms may face business email compromise (BEC) risks or targeted phishing attacks stemming from the misuse of leaked contact data.

E-commerce and retail platforms like Estante Virtual, a Brazilian site for buying and selling books, represent another highly affected sector. With millions of customers using such platforms for daily transactions, any exposure of user data here can have direct consumer implications, especially for those who use the same credentials across multiple services. These platforms often store both personal and behavioural data, which can be leveraged in targeted fraud attempts or account takeover attacks.

The breaches also include platforms from the online gaming and entertainment sectors, such as MMORG (presumably related to massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Gaming platforms have consistently been attractive targets for data breaches due to their large, engaged user bases and the value of user accounts, some of which hold in-game currencies, progress, and linked payment methods. In many cases, breached gaming account credentials are reused by cybercriminals for phishing campaigns, impersonation, and resale in grey markets.

Also included is Hacker Forum, a community platform that may be involved in cybersecurity discussions, tool sharing, or even illicit exchanges of breached data and attack strategies. The inclusion of this type of forum in the dataset may suggest the presence of meta-data about threat actor behaviour or reused credentials from other sources. Ironically, forums meant for discussing security are sometimes themselves compromised, further exposing individuals involved in both white-hat and black-hat activities.

Another notable inclusion is GGumim, a Korean platform specialising in interior design and 3D home visualisation. This represents the growing set of breaches involving creative tools and visual platforms, which may not be traditionally viewed as high-risk but increasingly collect user-generated content, profile data, and user preferences. Users on platforms like GGumim often include both design professionals and homeowners, exposing people from a wide spectrum of socioeconomic and professional backgrounds.

Affected Populations and Stakeholders

The diversity of services affected indicates that users across many different demographic, geographic, and occupational segments may have been impacted:
- Small business owners and sales agents who rely on B2B platforms for networking and procurement.
- Consumers and online shoppers who engage in retail transactions, often reusing usernames and passwords across services.
- Gamers and younger users active in multiplayer or online forums, many of whom may not take password hygiene seriously.
- Developers, cybersecurity professionals, and hobbyists, especially in cases involving forums or tools used by tech communities.
- Designers, homeowners, or hobbyists engaging with digital visualisation tools for interior planning or aesthetic design.
- Latin American and South Asian populations, as some of the breached platforms (e.g., Estante Virtual and IndiaMART) are regionally concentrated, pointing to potential localised impacts.

The risks facing these user groups are not just limited to account compromise. In the hands of malicious actors, this type of personal data can enable the construction of detailed personal profiles. Such profiles are valuable for social engineering, identity theft, targeted scams, and even extortion or harassment.

Broader Implications

While the total number of breached accounts, 31.7 million, is substantial, what stands out more is the breadth of the platforms involved. Unlike many high-profile single breaches that affect a homogenous user group, these 55 breaches reveal how fragmented and pervasive the threat of data leakage has become. Platforms that historically would not have been perceived as high-priority targets, such as niche forums, design tools, and secondary marketplaces, are increasingly falling victim to breaches, often due to insecure infrastructure, outdated software, or inadequate user authentication mechanisms.

The appearance of these datasets in publicly accessible forums or repositories also reflects the shifting nature of data dissemination. Many breaches may go undetected or unreported for years, only surfacing when threat actors publish the data to gain recognition, coordinate dumps, or undercut competitors on cybercrime marketplaces. The inclusion of this data in freely accessible locations dramatically increases the surface area for abuse, enabling a wide array of malicious actors, including low-skill opportunists, to access, compile, and exploit the information.

Preventive and Mitigative Takeaways

For organisations, this breach cluster reinforces the importance of:
- Regularly auditing the security posture of platforms handling user data.
- Promptly disclosing breaches to affected users when discovered.
- Encouraging or enforcing strong authentication practices, including two-factor authentication.
- Providing guidance to users on secure password practices and monitoring their account activity.

For individuals, the lesson is equally clear. Relying on unique, strong passwords for each service, avoiding reuse, and enabling security features like 2FA can make a significant difference in limiting the damage from one of these breaches. Additionally, being aware of what information is shared on niche or lesser-known platforms, especially when it overlaps with identity-related data, can help reduce long-term exposure risks.