Telegram Allegedly Impacted by Massive Data Leak Exposing 200 Million User Records
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Telegram the messaging platform is facing reports of a massive data breach allegedly exposing over 200 million user records. The dataset surfaced on a dark web forum around January 24, 2026.
The dataset contains 45GB of uncompressed files, includes three databases labeled "Telegram user data", "Source platform" and "Telegram". The data may come from scraping of public profiles or exploiting the contact import tool allowing users to find acquaintances by syncing phone numbers. The presence of non-public email addresses in the samples suggests the collection could also be a compiled list of aggregated information from previous third-party breaches instead of a direct breach of Telegram's infrastructure.
According to the hackers the stolen data includes:
- Telegram usernames and display names
- Phone numbers (approximately 66 million unique entries)
- Email addresses
- User IDs
The threat actor claims 200 million individuals are affected.
Telegram states no private data was exposed and that the records contain information already available to the public. The source of the data is not clear and Telegram has not disclosed if any of their infrastructure is compromised.
