Bolt

In March 2017, Bolt, a file-sharing website operating at bolt.cd, suffered a data breach that exposed user records from its vBulletin forum. According to our investigation team, the indexed dataset tied to this breach contains 618,899 records, including 618,899 email addresses and 618,767 passwords. The breach was previously reported on the Vigilante.pw breached database directory, and no individual or group has publicly claimed responsibility for it.

Limited public reporting: As of September 25, 2026, detailed company notices or major news coverage for this listing were limited in sources reviewed. The facts below rely primarily on the indexed fields plus any secondary sources cited.

Independent breach documentation, such as the profile maintained by North IT Group, describes the exposed data as having been sourced from Bolt's vBulletin forum and includes usernames, IP addresses, and salted MD5 password hashes. Because Bolt operated as a file-sharing and warez community, many people who registered there may not have considered the account sensitive, which often means reused passwords that remain active on more important services.

What Information Was Compromised?

Our analysis found the following data types in this breach: email addresses and passwords.

Not every individual is affected by every type of data listed here.

The password fields account for nearly all indexed records, meaning most people caught in this breach had both their email address and a password exposed together.

What Are the Potential Risks for Affected Individuals?

The combination of an email address and a password is the core ingredient for account takeover attempts. Attackers routinely feed leaked credential pairs into automated tools that try the same login details on email providers, banking sites, social media, and shopping accounts. This technique, known as credential stuffing, works because many people reuse the same password across multiple sites.

Even where a leaked password no longer works, the exposed email addresses remain useful for phishing. Someone who knows you had an account on a file-sharing forum can craft convincing messages that appear to come from a legitimate service, hoping you will click a malicious link or hand over fresh credentials.

There is also a privacy dimension. Bolt catered to users interested in file sharing and warez content, so association with the site may be embarrassing or otherwise unwelcome for some individuals whose registration details surfaced publicly.

What Should You Do If You Were Affected?

If you had an account on Bolt or used the same credentials elsewhere, take the following steps:

Change your password everywhere you reused it. Start with your email account, since access to your inbox allows an attacker to reset passwords on nearly every other service you use.

Create unique, strong passwords for each account. A password manager makes this practical by generating and storing distinct passwords for every site.

Turn on two-factor authentication wherever it is offered, especially for email, banking, and social media accounts.

Watch for phishing. Be skeptical of unexpected emails referencing old accounts, file sharing, or password resets, and never enter credentials through links in unsolicited messages.

Check whether your email appears in this breach.

Because Bolt was a niche file-sharing community rather than a mainstream consumer service, no formal notification program or company support channel for affected users was identified in the sources reviewed as of September 25, 2026. Self-directed protective steps are therefore the practical route for anyone concerned about their exposure.