VK 2012

In 2012 the popular Russian social network VKontakte suffered a massive data breach involving the compromise of its user database. The incident resulted in the exposure of approximately 100 million user records. Although the breach occurred in 2012 the data was only publicly circulated and offered for sale on darknet marketplaces around June 2016. The leaked information was particularly sensitive because it contained plaintext passwords along with personal contact details. Security researchers confirmed that the breach was likely the result of an exploit in an older version of the site infrastructure before enhanced security measures were implemented.