If You Reuse Passwords, the NewPosts Leak Should Worry You

HEROIC found: On August 24, 2018, the NewPosts database was breached, exposing 12,587 records containing email addresses and SHA-1 password hashes from users of the Georgian-language news portal.

Why the NewPosts Breach Is Dangerous

NewPosts is a Georgian-language news portal covering politics, society, business, and global affairs. Password reuse is the primary danger from this breach — if you used the same password on NewPosts as on your email, banking, or social media accounts, those accounts are now vulnerable. SHA-1 password hashes are weak by modern standards and can be cracked using rainbow tables and GPU-accelerated tools.

What Was Exposed in the NewPosts Leak

• Email addresses
• SHA-1 password hashes

Why This NewPosts Data Puts You at Risk

SHA-1 is a cryptographically weak hashing algorithm that attackers can crack with widely available tools. Once cracked, these passwords enable credential stuffing attacks against any service where the same email and password combination was reused. Even years after this 2018 breach, these credentials circulate in criminal marketplaces and are actively used in automated account takeover campaigns.

How Database Breaches Happen

Database breaches occur when attackers exploit vulnerabilities in web applications, misconfigured servers, or stolen administrative credentials to gain access to a site's backend database. Once inside, they extract user records in bulk. News portals and community sites are frequent targets because they often store user credentials without implementing modern security standards.

Check If Your Data Was Exposed

HEROIC operates one of the world's largest breach databases, covering more than 400 billion leaked records. Use HEROIC's free breach scanner to check if your email address or credentials appeared in the NewPosts leak or thousands of other breaches in our database.