Inside the Combolist: 138 Private Hotmail Logins Leaked

On May 16, 2026, a Telegram user uploaded a combolist labeled "138x UHQ PRIVATE HOTMAILS," with "UHQ" typically meaning "ultra high quality" in dark web slang, a term sellers use to claim the credentials are freshly verified. HEROIC identified 138 records in the file, each pairing a Hotmail email address with a plaintext password and a URL.

Why This Is Dangerous

Sellers label lists "private" and "UHQ" to signal they haven't been widely shared or already exhausted by other attackers, which makes the accounts inside more likely to still be usable. Combined with plaintext passwords, this small file is built to be effective, not just large.

What Was Exposed in This Combolist

• Email addresses (Hotmail accounts)
• Plaintext passwords
• URLs tied to each credential pair

Why This Matters

Even a small combolist like this one can cause outsized damage if the credentials are genuinely fresh. A compromised Hotmail account can be used to reset passwords on connected services, and if any of these 138 people reused their password elsewhere, the risk extends to account takeover well beyond their email inbox.

How Combolists Work

A combolist is simply a curated file of email and password pairs. Sellers who market a list as "private" or "UHQ" are trying to differentiate it from the huge, recycled combolists that circulate freely and often contain dead or already-changed passwords. Whether or not those claims are accurate, the underlying risk is the same: real credentials in plain, readable text.

Check If You Are Affected

If you use Hotmail or Outlook, don't take a seller's word for it either way. HEROIC's free breach scanner checks your email against more than 400 billion leaked records so you can confirm your real exposure in seconds.