Have I Been Pwned says about 560,000 email addresses were in Crunchbase data ShinyHunters published after a January 2026 'pay or leak' extortion attempt; Crunchbase confirmed a threat actor exfiltrated documents from its corporate network
Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) added Crunchbase on 14 October 2026 (06:01 UTC; 14:01 Perth time). HIBP says the private company intelligence platform was targeted in a ShinyHunters 'pay or leak' extortion attempt in January 2026, and that data allegedly obtained from the company was then published, including about 560,000 unique email addresses, largely of leads and business contacts, along with names, physical addresses, phone numbers, job titles, employers and LinkedIn profiles.
In a statement reported by Security Affairs on 26 January 2026, Crunchbase said it "detected a cybersecurity incident where a threat actor exfiltrated certain documents from our corporate network", that no business operations were disrupted, that the incident was contained, that it engaged cybersecurity experts and contacted federal law enforcement, and that it was reviewing the impacted information to decide whether any notifications were required.
Australian contacts are not separately stated.
UPDATE 22 Oct 2026: re-sourced Crunchbase's acknowledgement to Security Affairs and attributed the data details to Have I Been Pwned (source: Security Affairs, 26 Jan 2026).
- Product
- Crunchbase (company intelligence platform) — business contact and sales lead records
- Versions
- n/a — incident
- Exploited in Australia?
- unknown
- Patch to
- Check your work address on Have I Been Pwned. Business contacts in the data should expect targeted phishing that uses their real name, employer and job title, and should confirm payment or account changes through a known phone number.