Raychat raychat.ir Raychat 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 January 2021, Iranian chat app Raychat was breached. Have I Been Pwned lists 938,981 accounts with email addresses, names, IP addresses, browser details and bcrypt-hashed passwords. The platform is now defunct.
View all 13,118 breaches- Breach date
- 31 Jan 2021
- Affected
- 938,981
- Data exposed
- Browser user agent details, Email addresses, IP addresses, Names, Passwords
- Verified
- Yes
- Last updated
Source: Have I Been Pwned (CC BY 4.0)
What happened
Raychat was an Iranian social media and chat platform. Security researcher Bob Diachenko reported on 31 January 2021 that a Raychat database had been left exposed online and then wiped by an automated attack. Gizmodo reported that the app's data was wiped out in the attack. Raychat didn't respond publicly in the reports used for this page, and Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) describes the platform as now defunct.
HIBP lists 938,981 accounts, covering 939 thousand unique email addresses. Other reports quoted far higher record counts, but this page uses HIBP's figure.
Sources checked: haveibeenpwned.com, gizmodo.com
Last verified against the official page:
What was exposed
The data included email addresses, names, IP addresses, browser user agent strings and passwords stored as bcrypt hashes. Bcrypt is slow to crack, so strong passwords are likely safe, while short or common ones are not.
What it lets criminals do
An email address, a name and an IP address together point to a real person and roughly where they are. That is enough for targeted phishing, and for threats that claim to know who you are. If you reused the Raychat password, someone can try it on other accounts.
What to do
The service is gone, so you can't change anything there. Focus on the places you reused the password.
What to do if you were in it
- 1
Change any password you reused from Raychat
The account is dead, but the password may not be. Change it everywhere else you used it, and make each new one unique.
- 2
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.
- 3
Expect phishing that mentions the breach
With your email and name out, scammers can write emails and texts that look personal. Don't click links in unexpected messages. Go to the company's site yourself.
- 4
Ignore threats that claim to know who you are
Messages that quote your IP address or old username and demand payment are bluffs built from leaked data. Don't reply or pay.
- 5
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 Raychat breach?
If you had a Raychat account before early 2021, you may be. Look up your email on Have I Been Pwned or run a free Serus scan.
What was exposed?
Email addresses, names, IP addresses, browser user agent details and bcrypt-hashed passwords, per HIBP.
Can I delete my Raychat account?
HIBP describes the platform as defunct, so there is nothing to log into. Focus on any reused passwords.
Should I change my password?
Yes, wherever you reused the Raychat password.
Sources
- Have I Been Pwned: Raychat
- Have I Been Pwned: Raychat Data Breach · haveibeenpwned.com
- Iranian Chat App Gets Its Data Wiped Out in a Cyberattack · gizmodo.com
Something wrong or out of date? Tell us and we'll re-check it.
