562,000 XKCD forum accounts are on the street after hack

Webcomic XKCD’s phpBB forum has been hacked. 562,000 members were affected. Usernames, email addresses, IP addresses and md5-hashed passwords have been leaked. According to HaveIBeenPwned.com, 58 percent of the email addresses were already in other databases.

The XKCD forum is therefore offline until the environment can be made safe again. Data analyst Adam Davies supplied the leaked loot to HaveIBeenPwned, which acts as a whistleblower for such cases. In an email to users, XKCD reports that updates will be posted on echochamber.me, but that site is also down.

According to HaveIBeenPwned the XKCD forum uses the phpBB3 software. Users are advised to immediately change any identical or similar passwords on other websites. Reusing passwords is never a good idea.