Inside the Multilingual Folk Tale Database Breach: 10,175 Hashes Leaked

HEROIC analysts identified a dataset from the Multilingual Folk Tale Database, a now-defunct U.S.-based scholarly resource that once indexed folk and fairy tales across languages, circulating on a hacking forum. Discovered on August 26, 2018, the dataset contains 10,175 records, each pairing an email address with a password hash stored in an unspecified format.

Why This Is Dangerous

Even without confirmation of exactly which hashing algorithm was used, any password hash can eventually be cracked with enough computing power, especially on a site that shut down years ago and never patched its security. Once cracked, the plaintext password behind each hash becomes valuable to attackers, not because of the folk tale site itself, but because of everywhere else that same password might have been reused.

What Was Exposed in the Folk Tale Database Breach

• Email addresses
• Password hashes

Why This Matters for the 10,175 People Affected

Old accounts on niche or now-defunct sites are exactly the kind of data that ends up merged into combolists used for credential stuffing. If any of these 10,175 users reused their folk tale database password on email, banking, or shopping accounts, they remain at risk of account takeover, identity theft, and financial fraud, regardless of how long ago this specific site shut down.

How This Database Breach Happened

This incident is classified as a database and combolist leak, meaning attackers obtained a direct copy of the site's user table, likely through a vulnerability in its aging codebase, and combined the emails and hashes into a list for distribution on hacking forums. Because this data was never widely reported at the time, it can resurface years later and still catch users off guard, as many never learned their information had been exposed.

Check If You Are Affected

To find out if your email address or password appears in this leak or any other, run a free scan with HEROIC's breach checker, which searches a database of more than 400 billion leaked records.