Our Analysts Found the ai.type Breach Circulating in Dark Web Forums

HEROIC analysts found the ai.type breach data recieved renewed attention on dark web forums and Telegram channels in recent months, being bundled alongside fresh stealer logs from 2024 and 2025. The original breach occured in December 2017, when a database belonging to the ai.type virtual keyboard app was left exposed online without any password protection. That database contained 5.5 million records, including the email addresses and IP addresses of users who had downloaded and used the app. Because IP addresses reveal your approximate location and internet service provider, this data is more dangerous than it might first appear.

What Attackers Can Do With Your Email and IP Address

Having your email address and IP address together gives criminals a starting point for targeted phishing and account takeover attempts. Your IP address tells an attacker which city or region you are in, which internet provider you use, and can help them craft convincing fake emails pretending to be from your bank or a local service. Your email is then used to locate other accounts tied to that address across platforms, making it seperate pieces of information that together form a dangerous picture for criminals to exploit.

What Was Exposed in the ai.type Breach

• Email Address
• IP Address

Why the ai.type Breach Is a Privacy Risk Even Without Passwords

Many people assume a breach is only dangerous if passwords were stolen. The ai.type breach proves that wrong. Your email address alone allows criminals to run it through credential stuffing tools using passwords from other breaches you may have forgotten about. Your IP address adds location context that makes phishing emails more believable and targeted. When this data is combined with information from other breaches in aggregated datasets, it enables identity theft and financial fraud that can be very difficult to detect or stop.

How a Database Breach Works

A database breach can happen when a company stores user data in an online database but fails to protect it with proper security settings. In ai.type's case, the database was left open to the internet with no password required to access it, meaning anyone who knew where to look could download millions of user records without any hacking required. This type of misconfiguration is surprisingly common and represents a significant failure to protect user privacy.

Check If Your Data Was Exposed

HEROIC's free breach scanner covers more than 400 billion records, including the ai.type breach, and can tell you in seconds whether your email address or other personal information has been exposed. Even if you have never heard of ai.type, you may be in the database if you ever downloaded a third-party keyboard app. Run a free scan at HEROIC now and take the first step toward protecting your personal information.