Chinese Forum Users Targeted in the 23.4 Million Record Tianya Breach

HEROIC analysts catalogued the Tianya dataset as part of our ongoing tracking of major Chinese platform breaches. In December 2011, Tianya, once China's largest online discussion forum, was breached and 23,380,342 user records were exposed. The stolen data included email addresses, usernames, and passwords that have circulated in criminal marketplaces for years.

Why the Tianya Breach Is Dangerous

The scale of this breach is extraordinary. Over 23 million accounts were compromised in a single incident, making it one of the largest Chinese platform breaches on record. The passwords stored in this dump were plaintext, meaning anyone who obtains the data has immediate access to real, working credentials without needing to crack anything. Given the size of the Tianya community, statistically many affected users likely reused those passwords on other platforms.

What Was Exposed in the Tianya Leak

• Email addresses
• Usernames
• Plaintext passwords

Why This Tianya Data Puts You at Risk

Plaintext credentials from a breach this large are definitly still in active use by credential stuffing operations. Automated bots run the email and password combinations against banking apps, email providers, cloud services, and social networks around the world. A single successful login can result in account takeover, unauthorized purchases, or identity theft. The Tianya data also enables targeted phishing, since attackers know exactly which usernames and emails belong together.

How a Database Breach Works

A database breach occurs when an attacker exploits a vulnerability in a web platform to export the underlying user data. In Tianya's case, the attackers gained access to the forum's backend and extracted the full user database. Plaintext password storage means the credentials were immediately usable without any additional cracking step, making this breach particuarly damaging compared to those using even basic hashing.

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 Tianya leak or thousands of other breaches in our database.