Charter Communications — the company behind Spectrum internet and TV services — has disclosed a data breach that exposed personal information belonging to 4.9 million current and former customers. The breach began on April 1, 2026, when hackers from the ShinyHunters gang called a Charter employee, pretended to be someone trustworthy, and convinced them to share their login credentials. With that access, the attackers got into Charter’s customer management systems and downloaded account data before being detected.
The stolen records include names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, and details about customer plans and support tickets. Around 85,000 records also contained job titles from an internal employee directory. Charter disputes the hackers’ claim of 42 million stolen records, and an independent check by data-breach tracker Have I Been Pwned confirmed 4.9 million unique email addresses in the leaked data. If you are a current or past Charter or Spectrum customer, your information may now be in the hands of cybercriminals who could use it for phishing calls, spam, or identity fraud.
How to check if you’re affected
Affected products include Charter’s business customer management and Spectrum residential account services. To see if your email address appeared in the breach, visit haveibeenpwned.com and enter the address you used for your Charter or Spectrum account. If it shows up, be extra cautious of any calls or emails claiming to be from Charter — scammers often use freshly stolen data to craft convincing follow-up attacks. You do not need to change your Spectrum password based on this breach alone, since passwords were not reported as stolen, but keeping a strong, unique password is always a good idea.