Liker liker.com Liker data breach: what happened and what to do
Reviewed by Anthon Wansland
Head of Product & Co-Founder
Serus is a privacy company with paid tools to find and remove your personal data. This page is free and based on official sources.
In March 2021, the social network Liker was breached. Have I Been Pwned lists 465,141 accounts. Exposed data includes email addresses, names, dates of birth, private messages, phone numbers and security answers saved in plain text. Passwords were bcrypt hashes.
View all 13,118 breaches- Breach date
- 8 Mar 2021
- Affected
- 465,141
- Data exposed
- Auth tokens, Dates of birth, Education levels, Email addresses, Geographic locations, IP addresses, Names, Passwords, Phone numbers, Private messages, Security questions and answers, Social media profiles, Usernames
- Verified
- Yes
- Last updated
Source: Have I Been Pwned (CC BY 4.0)
What happened
Liker described itself as a "kinder, smarter social network". In March 2021 it suffered a data breach, which Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) says was allegedly done in retaliation for the Gab data breach and the scraping of data from Parler. The site stayed offline afterwards, and Liker didn't respond when HIBP contacted it.
HIBP lists 465,141 accounts, each tied to an email address.
Sources checked: haveibeenpwned.com
Last verified against the official page:
What was exposed
The data is broad: auth tokens, dates of birth, education levels, email addresses, geographic locations, IP addresses, names, passwords, phone numbers, private messages, security questions and answers, social media profiles and usernames. Passwords were stored as bcrypt hashes, which are hard to crack but not impossible for weak passwords. The security questions and answers were stored in plain text, so anyone holding the data can read them as they are.
What it lets criminals do
Plain-text security answers are the worst part. If you used the same answers (a first pet, a school, a mother's maiden name) on a bank or email account, those answers should be treated as burned. Private messages can be used for blackmail or very convincing phishing. Phone numbers and dates of birth help with SIM swap attempts and account recovery fraud.
What to do
Start with anything that shares a password or security answer with your Liker account, then deal with phishing.
What to do if you were in it
- 1
Change your Liker password, and any you reused it on
Pick a new, unique password on the affected site, then change it everywhere you used the same or a similar one. A password manager makes unique passwords easy to keep.
- 2
Change reused security questions and answers
If a bank, email or other account uses the same security answers you gave Liker, update them. Better, use answers that are random text stored in your password manager.
- 3
Turn on two-factor login
Use an authenticator app or passkey on your email, banking and shopping accounts. It stops most account takeovers even when a password is already out there.
- 4
Expect phishing that mentions the breach
With your phone number, email and messages out, scammers can write emails and texts that look personal. Don't click links in unexpected messages. Go to the company's site yourself.
- 5
Tell your mobile provider to lock your number
Ask for a port-out PIN or SIM lock so nobody can move your number using the phone number and date of birth that leaked.
- 6
Check whether your email or phone is in this and other breaches
Run a free Serus scan. It checks breach databases for your email and phone number, and Serus keeps monitoring and alerts you when your details turn up in a new leak.
Timeline
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The breach happened
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Added to Have I Been Pwned
Frequently asked
Was I affected by the Liker breach?
If you had a Liker account in 2021, yes. Look up your email on Have I Been Pwned or run a free Serus scan.
What was exposed?
Emails, names, dates of birth, phone numbers, private messages, security questions and answers, passwords as bcrypt hashes and more, per HIBP.
Should I change my password?
Yes, and change it on any site where you reused it. Also change any security answers you reused.
Did Liker respond?
HIBP says Liker didn't respond when contacted about the breach.
Sources
- Have I Been Pwned: Liker
- Have I Been Pwned: Liker Data Breach · haveibeenpwned.com
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