Why did I get an email about a Data Breach of Wishbone?
The Queen’s IT Services Security team recently became aware of a publication of personal details that were released due to a January 2020 breach of the mobile app Wishbone, a popular mobile app that lets users compare two items in a simple voting poll. This event may have potentially affected multiple account holders here at Queen’s. As a precaution, Queen’s IT Services will expire the passwords of any Queen’s accounts found to be listed on the site of published accounts and who have not changed their passwords since February 1, 2020.
What should I do to protect myself?
If you received an email message from IT Services concerning the Wishbone breach and have not changed your password since February 1, 2020 you will be sent additional emails from IT Services requesting you to change your password, prior to your password expiring. NetID passwords are changed at https://netid.queensu.ca/selfservice/login/auth
We also encourage you to take the following actions to better protect yourself and your information:

1. Do not reuse passwords across your accounts.


2. If you have used your Queen’s password on multiple sites, we strongly encourage you to change that password on every other site where it has been used.


3. Be extra diligent of scams that may reference your account.

What data was published?
An extensive amount of personal information including almost 10M unique email addresses alongside names, phone numbers geographic locations and other personal attributes were leaked online and extensively redistributed. Passwords stored as unsalted MD5 hashes were also included in the breach part of a massive trove of data that had occurred and then published on the internet.
Why is Queen’s expiring passwords for accounts that had information published?
Queen’s account holders who fail to follow safe password practices are at risk when breaches like this occur. To protect your Queen’s account IT Services are taking this action to prevent account compromises by ensuring all accounts associated with the breach have refreshed passwords since February 1, 2020.
What caused the data breach?
We have no direct information about the cause of the breach. IT Services obtain breach information from several services, including “Have I Been Pwned?”. Visiting the website https://haveibeenpwned.com/ will allow you to enter and check your Queen’s University email address against all publicized breaches that reference your Queen’s email address.