Special K Data Feed Spam List (2015)

Verified data classes are dates of birth, email addresses, genders, IP addresses, names, and physical addresses. Passwords, user accounts, payment cards, and identity documents are not verified data classes for this record. A match should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that an account password was compromised.

The combination of an email address, name, date of birth, and physical address can increase the risk of targeted spam, phishing, fake promotions, direct-mail fraud, and profile correlation. Some fields in aggregated marketing lists may be old, incomplete, automatically generated, or inaccurate; an email match does not prove that every associated field is correct.

The analyzed collection contained more than 81 million rows across roughly 400 files and resolved to 30,741,620 unique email addresses. A shared file structure indicated that records from many promotion, sweepstakes, credit, education, and other lead-generation sites had been combined into a marketing feed. The resulting list was then offered for commercial use.

Because there is no verified technical evidence of unauthorized access to one organization's system, this record must be identified as a spam list. The canonical date represents the list's circulation during 2015; it should not be presented as the attack date or breach date of a single company.

People who submitted information to online sweepstakes, promotions, comparison sites, or lead-generation forms may appear in lists of this kind. Because records were combined from many sources, it is often impossible to determine which specific site or form caused a particular person to be included.

People who have kept the same email address for many years, whose name and address remain current, or who share detailed profile information in online forms may receive more convincing scams. Even an old address or date of birth can be combined with information from other sources to build a profile.

This record contains no verified password data, so do not assume a password leak based only on this match. Instead, avoid links in unexpected promotion, credit, sweepstakes, education, or delivery messages; verify the sender through an independent channel and report messages requesting personal information as spam or phishing.

Do not trust a message merely because it includes your name, date of birth, or address. If you notice signs of a fraudulent financial application or identity misuse, review your account activity and credit reports. Unsubscribe from marketing you no longer want and use applicable deletion or objection rights where available.

Use a separate email address or alias for promotions and sweepstakes rather than your primary address. Share only required fields, clear preselected marketing permissions, and review terms about sharing personal data with third parties. Keep email filtering and phishing protection enabled.

Spam lists can circulate for many years, so one-time action is not enough. Periodically review data-broker and marketing profiles, close unnecessary accounts, and reduce the amount of address, birth-date, and contact information available online to limit future profile correlation.

Search for your email address with the breach-checking tool to see whether it matches the Special K Data Feed Spam List record. A match shows that the email address appeared in an aggregated list circulated for commercial spam; it does not mean you held an account with a specific company, that one organization was hacked, or that every associated personal field is accurate.