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Breach Database / Bell (2017 breach)

Yes — Bell (2017 breach) was breached.

What happened

In May 2017, the Bell telecommunications company in Canada suffered a data breach resulting in the exposure of millions of customer records. The data was consequently leaked online with a message from the attacker stating that they were "releasing a significant portion of Bell.ca's data due to the fact that they have failed to cooperate with us" and included a threat to leak more. The impacted data included over 2 million unique email addresses and 153k survey results dating back to 2011 and 2012. There were also 162 Bell employee records with more comprehensive personal data including names, phone numbers and plain text "passcodes". Bell suffered another breach in 2014 which exposed 40k records.

What data was exposed

What to do right now

  1. Change your password for this service now. And change it anywhere you reused the same password — attackers try leaked passwords on other sites within hours ("credential stuffing").
  2. Turn on two-factor authentication. Even a leaked password is useless against an account protected by a second factor. Prefer an authenticator app over SMS.
  3. Be alert for smishing and SIM-swap attempts. Treat unexpected texts and "carrier" calls with suspicion; add a PIN/port-freeze with your mobile carrier.
  4. Expect convincing phishing emails. Attackers use breached details to write personalized emails. Be suspicious of any message referencing this service.
  5. Check your other accounts on Have I Been Pwned. Your email address may appear in other breaches you don't know about yet.
  6. Monitor the apps you use going forward. Clearly watches the breach record for the companies behind your apps and alerts you the moment one appears.

Breach data from Have I Been Pwned. Listing here means the service appears in the public breach record — not that your personal data was affected.

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