2.8 Billion X User Records Allegedly Leaked

X, formerly Twitter, has seemingly fallen victim to the largest social media data breach ever, involving 400 GB of data on 2.8+ billion users. In January 2025, a user published a 34GB sample of the data on BreachForum, a popular hacking forum and messaging board on the surface level web.

The 34GB .CSV contains over 201 million entries of data allegedly belonging to X users. The author claimed to have created this dataset by cross-referencing data from the 2025 leak with entries from the January 2023 leak, and only included users represented in both datasets. Although they did not explain how they got hold of the data, the author stated that the leak took place in January 2025.

User data from the 2023 leak consisted of the following information:

• Name
• Screen name
• Email
• Followers
• Date of creation (of the account)

The 2025 leak contained even more headers, which the post author appended to the old data:

• ID
• screen_name
• name
• location
• description
• url
• Email
• time zone
• language
• followers_count
• friends_count
• listed_count
• favourites_count
• statuses_count
• protected
• verified
• default_profile
• default_profile_image
• last_status_created_at
• last_status_source
• created_at

SafetyDetectives analyzed a sample of 100 data entries and found that they were consistent with account details shown on X. They were also able to validate a “considerable” number of email addresses. While the data doesn’t include passwords, it’s rich enough to leave victims open to possible phishing or social engineering attacks.

The author claimed that their reason for publishing the data publicly is because they saw “no sign that X or the general public is aware of the largest social media data breach ever” and that they “tried contacting X via several methods without response.” They also speculated that the data was leaked by “a disgruntled employee” during the X layoffs.

This echoes a 2023 incident, in which someone suspected of being a laid-off Twitter employee published the company’s proprietary source code on GitHub. Twitter’s past leaks also continue to haunt them, with the data of 281 million users being present in the 2024 “Mother of all Breaches.”