Data Breach

Charter Data Breach May 2026 - What Was Exposed and What To Do

The Charter data breach exposed 4,851,517 records including Email addresses, Job titles, Names, Phone numbers, Physical addresses. This breach has been verified by HaveIBeenPwned. Affected users should check HaveIBeenPwned.com and take immediate steps to protect their accounts.

What Happened

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.

Breach date
2026-05-23
Records affected
4,851,517
Verified
Yes
Domain
charter.com

What Was Exposed

The following data types were included in the breach:

  • Email addresses
  • Job titles
  • Names
  • Phone numbers
  • Physical addresses

What You Should Do

If you had an account with Charter, take these steps immediately:

  1. Check if your account was affected at HaveIBeenPwned.com
  2. Watch for phishing emails that reference the breach or impersonate the affected company
  3. Be alert for social engineering attempts using your exposed personal information
  4. Enable two-factor authentication on the affected service if available
  5. Consider using a password manager to generate unique passwords for each service

FAQ

Was my data in the Charter breach?
Check HaveIBeenPwned.com to see if your email address was included in the Charter breach. The breach exposed 4,851,517 records containing Email addresses, Job titles, Names, Phone numbers, Physical addresses.
What should I do if my data was exposed in the Charter breach?
Change your password on the affected service immediately. Enable two-factor authentication. If financial data or government IDs were exposed, place a fraud alert with credit bureaus and monitor your accounts for unauthorized activity.
When did the Charter data breach happen?
The Charter breach occurred on 2026-05-23. It was added to the HaveIBeenPwned database on 2026-05-28. The breach affected 4,851,517 accounts.

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