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by slopusila 135 days ago
> including email addresses, phone numbers, and other unspecified “internal metadata.”

> Substack specified that more sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, and other financial information, was unaffected.

I hate it when companies do this.

passwords and credit card numbers are easily changed.

names, emails and phone numbers are not.

5 comments

This is what I've been saying for years. I really could care less if my passwords were leaked. My phone number, on the other hand, is near-impossible to change. The fact that VoIP/virtual numbers are blacklisted from use almost everywhere doesn't help anything, because otherwise I would just use a ton of cheap rented numbers.

The same goes for full names on file, physical addresses, and other hard-to-change information. Passwords have been the least of my concerns since password managers were invented.

You could, in theory, use a custom domain or email aliasing service like SimpleLogin or Addy to combat the email address issue, though websites like GitHub have been known to block emails created with an aliasing service. I could go on about why that move does next to nothing to combat actual abuse; any spammer worth their salt can just buy a bunch of Gmail accounts or Outlook accounts instead.

>I really could care less if my passwords were leaked

couldn't*

Maybe they really care more than they should.
I'd edit my other reply to this comment but can't anymore.

Here are the columns from the CSV file I've seen being shared around on forums, including the "internal metadata". This mostly boils down to full name on file, email, Stripe customer ID, activity metrics, usernames, and phone numbers. Everything else is largely irrelevant.

id,name,email,email_confirmed,email_confirmation_token,stripe_platform_customer_id,is_global_admin,is_ghost,created_at,anonymous_id,email_bounce_count,photo_url,publisher_agreement_accepted_at,bio,updated_at,profile_set_up_at,tos_accepted_at,email_digest_at,has_passed_captcha,import_confirmation_required,post_notification_preference,reader_installed_at,activity_items_viewed_at,dismissed_ios_app_promo_at,email_notifications_last_resumed_at,previous_name,release_group,handle,phone,bank_payment_failures,is_globally_banned,session_version

Phone numbers are kinda concerning given their popularity as 2FA. A phone number is now basically your shared password for everything. It's also semi public, hard to change and you are basically one SIM swap attack away from a full compromise.
Europeans (who are the ones notified of the attack) enjoy significant bureaucracy around getting a SIM card assigned or reassigned.
Phone number login in 2026 is really just asking for someone to do a SIM swap attack on the victim's account to steal their identity.

Surely a list of services that allow phone number logins exists so that one can avoid signing up in the first place and we would then see it in another connecting breach.

Most banks and credit cards, as far as I’ve seen.

For example, I tried to set up another form of 2FA on Chase, but it still defaults to phone. I can’t disable or change it.

PayPal :(
Also, name, address and phone numbers let you do so many scams.

A friend of mine received a very well-crafted physical letter at his home about resetting his cryto ledger.

He is now very stressed because there are news about people with crypto getting abducted.

And with the ledger leak they have:

- his name and address

- how much money he has on his ledger