Charter

Medium

Data breach — May 2026

In May 2026, the telecommunications company Charter Communications (the parent company behind the consumer broadband and cable brand Spectrum) was named by the ShinyHunters group in a "pay or leak" extortion campaign. The group later published the data, which exposed 4.9M unique email addresses along with names, phone numbers and physical addresses. A subset of approximately 85k records originating from an internal employee directory also included job titles. Charter confirmed the incident, but stated that no sensitive personal information or customer proprietary network information (CPNI) was exfiltrated.

4.9M

Records exposed

2026

Year

Data types

Free

To check

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Quick answer — was Charter breached?

Yes. Charter was breached in May 2026, exposing 4,851,517 records including email addresses, job titles, names. This breach has been independently verified. If your email was involved, your data may still be at risk today. Check if you were affected.

What happened in the Charter data breach?

The exposed data included 5 types of personal information. Learn more about what a data breach means for you.

Why was the Charter breach so dangerous?

The Charter breach exposed 4,851,517 records — 4.9M people whose personal data is now circulating in criminal markets.

Don't wait to find out — check if your email was exposed in this breach.

What data was stolen in the Charter breach?

Email addresses Job titles Names Phone numbers Physical addresses

Email addresses — used for phishing attacks and credential stuffing against your other accounts

Job titles — may be combined with other breach data to build a profile for targeted attacks

Names — used to build profiles and target you with personalised scams

Phone numbers — enables SIM-swapping attacks and targeted SMS phishing

Physical addresses — combined with other data, used for identity theft and physical fraud

Is the Charter breach still dangerous in 2026?

Yes. Stolen data from the Charter breach remains dangerous years after the incident. Attackers routinely compile data from multiple breaches to build complete profiles, and credentials from 2026 are still actively used in automated attacks today.

Personal information like email addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth does not expire. Even if you changed your Charter password, the other exposed data can be combined with information from other breaches to target you. Learn how long stolen data stays dangerous.

What to do if your email was in the Charter breach

Change your Charter password immediately

Log into Charter and change your password to something strong and unique — one you have never used anywhere else.

Change any account sharing that password

If you reused this password elsewhere, change it on every affected account. Attackers test stolen credentials against hundreds of popular sites within hours.

Enable two-factor authentication

Turn on 2FA on Charter and every important account. Even if your password is known, attackers cannot access the account without the second factor.

Check your other accounts for this breach

Run a full email scan to see every breach your address appears in — not just this one.

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Frequently asked about the Charter breach

How many people were affected by the Charter data breach?

Approximately 4,851,517 user records were exposed in the Charter breach in May 2026.

Is the Charter breach still a risk in 2026?

Yes. Leaked credentials are actively used in credential-stuffing attacks years after a breach. If you reused your Charter password elsewhere and have not changed it, those accounts remain at risk today.

How do I check if my email was in the Charter breach?

Enter your email in the free checker on EmailLeaked. We scan millions of breach records including the Charter dataset and tell you instantly whether your email was exposed and what data was taken.

What should I do if I was in the Charter breach?

Change your Charter password immediately, update any account where you used the same password, enable two-factor authentication on all important accounts, and monitor for phishing emails over the next 90 days.

How this breach page is reviewed

Breach pages are built from structured breach records and reviewed for practical risk guidance by EmailLeaked. Risk labels reflect exposed data types and are intended to help readers prioritise action.

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