A hacker has claimed to have publicly posted a database containing details of some 200 million X (formerly known as Twitter) users.
According to Safetydetective.com, which first broke the story, researchers discovered a post on the hacking forum “BreachForums” from a user named ThinkingOne.
The post reportedly contained a 34 GB downloadable file packed with over 201 million data entries related to X users.
The hacker in the post claimed that the data was shared after the realisation that neither X nor the general public were aware of “the largest social media breach ever”.
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ThinkingOne further claimed to have “tried contacting X via several methods with no response.”
Researchers at Safetydetective.com said they have verified the leaked data, which includes X screen names and user IDs, full names, locations, email addresses, follower counts, profile data, time zones, profile images, and more.
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“We reviewed the information corresponding to 100 users in the list, and we found that it matched what was shown on Twitter. We also verified a considerable amount of emails, which turned out to be valid email addresses, though we cannot confirm that the emails belong to the accounts listed,” they said.
What the hacker said
In a conversation with Forbes, ThinkingOne claimed that they don’t consider themselves a hacker, but rather data enthusiasts “who try to ensure everything they do is legal”.
“This is by far the largest social media breach ever, in terms of a number of users, and there is at least a possibility that the person responsible for the breach has other data, including emails, phone numbers and passwords,” ThinkingOne claimed.
While the exact origin of the data breach remains unclear, ThinkingOne claims they accessed X data leaked in January 2022 and added it to a further breach, which they claimed was leaked in January 2025.
“The dataset leaked in January 2025 included over 2.8 billion unique Twitter IDs and screennames,” ThinkingOne told Forbes, “I checked a representative sample of 100 and 92 had the correct user ID and screenname.’
The hacker added: “How could someone enumerate all Twitter user IDs, unless they were an employee or this was a very serious hacking job?”
X has yet to respond to the data breach claims.
