The PMNetwire Leak Has More Passwords Than a Small Town

The PMNetwire Leak Has More Passwords Than a Small Town

In August 2018, a dataset from PMNetwire, a now-defunct US free news service, appeared on a hacking forum. HEROIC analysts confirmed the dataset contains 13,818 records, each pairing an email address with a plaintext password. That is more login credentials than the entire population of many small towns, all sitting in one file, unencrypted.

Why a Plaintext Password Is the Worst Case Scenario

There is no cracking, no guessing, and no delay required. The passwords in this leak are stored exactly as PMNetwire subscribers typed them when they signed up, which means anyone who finds this file can try logging into other accounts with those exact credentials right away.

What Was Exposed in the PMNetwire Breach

• Email addresses
• Plaintext passwords

Why This Matters Even Though PMNetwire Is Gone

PMNetwire shut down years ago, but the passwords in this leak did not expire with the company. If you ever signed up for a free newsletter with the same password you used for email or banking, that password may still be sitting in this file, ready to be tried against those other accounts through credential stuffing, potentially leading to account takeover, financial fraud, or identity theft.

How an Old Combolist Like This Stays Dangerous

A combolist is simply a list of email and password pairs collected from one or more breaches. Because people reuse passwords across many sites, a combolist from a small, defunct news service can still unlock accounts on completely unrelated platforms years later, which is exactly why old breaches like PMNetwire keep resurfacing on hacking forums.

Check If You Are Affected by the PMNetwire Leak

HEROIC's free breach scanner checks your email against a database of more than 400 billion leaked records, including older breaches like PMNetwire. Run a scan to see if you are affected and change any password you may have reused.