• Home
  • News
  • Fortune 500
  • Tech
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
TechHacking

If You Ever Had a Myspace Account, This Hack May Affect You

By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
May 30, 2016, 6:10 AM ET
Myspace
MyspaceDavid Meyer

Update: Time Inc. confirmed the breach of MySpace in a statement Tuesday morning.

The details of millions of Myspace users seem to have been stolen in yet another major hacking incident, with their passwords being vulnerable to decryption—and apparently on sale now.

Yes, this musically-inclined social network may not be the hit it once was, but if you tend to reuse your passwords across sites and over the years, here’s yet another reason to switch them up.

The hack was reported on Friday by LeakedSource, the same searchable repository of hacked account information that recently added the details of up to 167 million LinkedIn (LNKD) users.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

According to Motherboard, a notorious hacker called Peace has put the Myspace data up for sale in an underground market, for the price of 6 bitcoins (around $3,200 at the time of writing). Peace did the same with the LinkedIn data, albeit at a slightly lower price.

There were 360 million user records in the Myspace stash, but only 111 million had usernames. (At its peak, around eight years ago, Myspace reportedly had 75.9 million regular users.) Other information in the records included email addresses and one or two passwords—the total number of passwords was just over 427 million.

I confirmed with LeakedSource that the database contains my old Myspace login details. The site gave me my unencrypted Myspace password (which I have now changed), showing how easily they were able to remove its protections.

“The methods Myspace used for storing passwords are not what internet standards propose,” a LeakedSource blog post read, describing the encryption as “very weak.”

The site’s administrators told me they know of “dozens of people” who have this dataset.

For more on hacking, watch our video.

They think it dates back years, but it’s not clear when the apparent hack took place, or who was responsible. LeakedSource’s operators deny hacking or condoning hacking, and say someone using the alias “Tessa88” passed them the database.

As security researcher Troy Hunt noted, indications arose a couple months back of people receiving spam emails to accounts they only ever used for Myspace:

This is interesting, note the date: https://t.co/6WKq620ytu

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) May 27, 2016

Interestingly, LeakedSource suggested that more than 850,000 of the accounts seem to have been automatically generated—they all shared the same password, “homelesspa,” and all had similar email addresses.

https://twitter.com/LeakedSource/status/736332464881274880

As you can probably guess, the most popular real passwords in the stash are “password1,” “abc123” and “123456.” People, don’t do this.

Myspace itself had not provided any comment at the time of writing. Fortune‘s proprietor, Time Incorporated (TIME), bought Myspace parent Viant Technology earlier this year.

This article was updated to note that the author had confirmed his details were in the leaked database.

About the Author
By David Meyer
LinkedIn icon
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

InnovationVenture Capital
This Khosla Ventures-backed startup is using AI to personalize cancer care
By Allie GarfinkleDecember 4, 2025
24 minutes ago
AIEye on AI
Companies are increasingly falling victim to AI impersonation scams. This startup just raised $28M to stop deepfakes in real time
By Sharon GoldmanDecember 4, 2025
53 minutes ago
Jensen Huang
SuccessBillionaires
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admits he works 7 days a week, including holidays, in a constant ‘state of anxiety’ out of fear of going bankrupt
By Jessica CoacciDecember 4, 2025
1 hour ago
Ted Pick
BankingData centers
Morgan Stanley considers offloading some of its data-center exposure
By Esteban Duarte, Paula Seligson, Davide Scigliuzzo and BloombergDecember 4, 2025
1 hour ago
Zuckerberg
EnergyMeta
Meta’s Zuckerberg plans deep cuts for Metaverse efforts
By Kurt Wagner and BloombergDecember 4, 2025
1 hour ago
Pichai
Big TechAlphabet
Alphabet’s AI chips are a potential $900 billion ‘secret sauce’
By Ryan Vlastelica and BloombergDecember 4, 2025
1 hour ago

Most Popular

placeholder alt text
North America
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos commit $102.5 million to organizations combating homelessness across the U.S.: ‘This is just the beginning’
By Sydney LakeDecember 2, 2025
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Economy
Two months into the new fiscal year and the U.S. government is already spending more than $10 billion a week servicing national debt
By Eleanor PringleDecember 4, 2025
6 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Economy
Ford workers told their CEO 'none of the young people want to work here.' So Jim Farley took a page out of the founder's playbook
By Sasha RogelbergNovember 28, 2025
6 days ago
placeholder alt text
North America
Anonymous $50 million donation helps cover the next 50 years of tuition for medical lab science students at University of Washington
By The Associated PressDecember 2, 2025
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Economy
Scott Bessent calls the Giving Pledge well-intentioned but ‘very amorphous,’ growing from ‘a panic among the billionaire class’
By Nick LichtenbergDecember 3, 2025
24 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Innovation
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says we’re just a decade away from a new normal of extraterrestrial data centers
By Sasha RogelbergDecember 1, 2025
3 days ago
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Success
  • Tech
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Environment
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Health
  • Retail
  • Lifestyle
  • Politics
  • Newsletters
  • Magazine
  • Features
  • Commentary
  • Mpw
  • CEO Initiative
  • Conferences
  • Personal Finance
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map

© 2025 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.