Tell HN: Scribd Breached

Not seeing anything posted about this anywhere, received on Monday, 26th of Oct 2026:

Subject: Notice of Security Incident

This notice is being sent on behalf of Scribd, Inc., the parent company of Scribd, Slideshare, Everand, and Fable, by Epiq, Scribd Inc.’s notification partner.

Hello,

We are writing to let you know that Scribd, Inc. recently experienced a security incident that may have affected your data.

We detected that an unauthorized third party may have gained access to certain user data in one of our systems. After investigating this activity, we found that the third party may have accessed your email address and the following of your information: last 4 digits of your credit card and country, credit card issuer, credit card expiry date, payment history (not including credit card details).

We have no evidence that this data has been misused, but we are notifying you out of an abundance of caution so that you can take steps to protect your information.

Watch for phishing

We encourage you to stay vigilant for phishing attempts by bad actors pretending to be Scribd, Inc. or Scribd, Slideshare, Everand or Fable.

Remember that Scribd, Inc. will never ask you for your username and password or other sensitive information via email or text. If you did receive a message like that:

    Don't click on any links in it. Instead type scribd.com, slideshare.net, everand.com, or fable.co directly into your browser.
    Call us at: +1-877-361-9887. Hours of operation are Monday-Friday, 11:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m., Central European Time.
    Report it through Scribd, Inc.'s Help Center.
For more information

We regret that this incident occurred and any concern it may cause you. If you have additional questions, contact the dedicated call center at +1-877-361-9887. Hours of operation are Monday-Friday, 11:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m. Central European Time.

The National Cyber Security Center has helpful guidance on how to recognize and avoid phishing scams here.

What Scribd, Inc. is doing

    We have secured the affected system and ended the unauthorized access.
    We have notified law enforcement as well as the relevant data protection authorities.
    We are working with an expert third party cybersecurity firm to strengthen our access controls and monitoring.
We value the trust you place in us with your information, and don’t take that lightly. We are deeply sorry this happened and will keep you updated if anything further changes.

Scribd, Inc.

79 points | by x______________ 1 hour ago

11 comments

  • jacquesm 8 minutes ago
    Mixed feelings. I feel sorry for the people whose info was taken but Scribd does not have my sympathy.
  • paaloeye 6 minutes ago
    • paaloeye 4 minutes ago
      > We detected that an unauthorized third party may have gained access to certain user data in one of our systems. After investigating this activity, we found that the third party may have accessed your email address and the following of your information: last 4 digits of your credit card and country, credit card issuer, credit card expiry date.
  • paaloeye 3 minutes ago
    I'm wonder how many users are exposed
  • smurda 53 minutes ago
    I only received this same email a few hours ago, Oct 30. Why not tell all customers at once, especially if payment information was involved?

    And they posted about a security incident on their blog on Oct 1. https://support.scribd.com/hc/en-us/articles/53787421531284-...

  • bluecode 53 minutes ago
    No one is safe anymore.
    • Razengan 37 minutes ago
      Hide yo apps, hide yo websites, hide yo hosts
      • totetsu 16 minutes ago
        How long until we all get cyber-war fatigue and this isn't even news anymore.
        • Razengan 15 minutes ago
          Man, people stopped caring about all the leaks and breaches and dark web data sales over 10 years ago
  • PeterHolzwarth 20 minutes ago
    @dang, always been curious about this: why are posts like this grey text vs dark test? It's difficult to read, being so low-contrast. I assume it's based on numbers, the poster, up/downvotes etc - but it seems a poor use of those systems given it sacrifices readability. Is it just a light mode thing? Is it just me?
    • dozerly 11 minutes ago
      I always assumed it was the down arrow affecting it, but I have always giggled at the fact that people with sharp eyes have to endure the bad posts while others do not
  • collabs 55 minutes ago
    I don't see any email like this in my inbox. Perhaps they are only sending this email to those who have their payment information saved on Scribd?
  • 8cvor6j844qw_d6 32 minutes ago
    Did some exploit get disclosed? HN frontpage is spammed with breaches.
    • ipsum2 24 minutes ago
      The exploit is called AI (or LLMs)
  • pquigley 9 minutes ago
    [flagged]
  • TZubiri 1 hour ago
    Wonder if there's anything of worth.

    Hackers got their hands on a loot of 300k pirated book pdfs? And internal documents that were already leaked by someone that googled "how to share a pdf".

    • coldfloor 1 hour ago
      Geez, I know nobody here clicks through and reads articles before commenting, but are we not even reading the posts now?

      >we found that the third party may have accessed your email address... last 4 digits of your credit card and country, credit card issuer, credit card expiry date, payment history

      • TZubiri 45 minutes ago
        not even worth disclosing nowadays, almost entirely public info
        • derwiki 37 minutes ago
          Great reason to use privacy.com virtual cards wherever possible and online
          • tjwebbnorfolk 24 minutes ago
            yea, until privacy.com gets hacked
            • aliasxneo 14 minutes ago
              What would they do with my bank account and routing number?
              • AdieuToLogic 2 minutes ago
                > What would they do with my bank account and routing number?

                Use it for money laundering and fraud.

    • fnord77 56 minutes ago
      I don't even think they actually pirated book pdfs. Just previews to get you to sign up that lead to no where
  • engineer_22 9 minutes ago
    Nice, I've been trying to hack scribd to download a pdf all day