StripCreator Data Breach
The 2019 StripCreator data breach occurred in November 2019 when the user database of StripCreator (stripcreator.com), a pioneering online webcomic creation platform founded in 2001, was compromised via exploit of a critical vBulletin vulnerability (CVE-2019-16759) and distributed on underground hacking forums.
Exposed Data Types
2- Email addresses
- Passwords
About This Breach
What information was affected in the StripCreator incident?
The leaked credential dump (stripcreator.com_november2019_md5_456k.csv) contains registration records for platform creators and forum participants. Compromised records for 402,792 unique user accounts expose:
- Contact Credentials: Canonical email addresses.
- Authentication Secrets: Passwords hashed with the unsalted MD5 hashing algorithm.
How many accounts were affected?
Rigorous RFC canonical parsing and deduplication across 456,183 credential lines confirmed 402,792 unique valid email addresses.
Technical analysis and security risks
The database dump resulted from remote code execution targeting vBulletin forum software. The use of unsalted MD5 hashes allows malicious actors to instantly reverse large percentages of passwords using precomputed rainbow tables and high-speed GPU cracking tools, facilitating automated credential stuffing against common services.
Recommended actions for affected users
Users who held accounts on StripCreator should:
- Immediately update passwords across any active accounts where the same or similar passwords were reused.
- Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) on personal email and banking services.
Verification and editorial method
LeakData compares the incident name, date, affected-record count, and exposed data types with accessible sources. Unverified fields are not presented as facts, and records are updated when new evidence becomes available.
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