IMPORTANT: Animal Jam Security Breach

Update: As of the morning of November 12, WildWorks has force-changed the passwords of all Animal Jam accounts and parent dashboard accounts. You will need to reset your password to something new in order to access it. If you no longer have access to the email associated with your account, send an email to support@animaljam.com. Rumors are spreading that if you do not have access to this email, then your account will be lost forever, but this is not true. Animal Jam Support can help you transfer your account to a different email if you contact them. It would seem if you have used the "remember me" function on your AJPC desktop app, you are still able to login without changing your password.

Howdy Jammers, it's Danny here with a safety alert for you guys. Earlier today, WildWorks announced information about a security breach targeting a third-party database that contained Animal Jam account information.

That was a lot of big words, so to put it simply: the service that AJHQ uses to store some user data for Animal Jam (usernames, passwords, parent emails linked to players' accounts, etc.) was compromised, and as a result, some private information was released in a security leak. WildWorks is reporting that 46 million Animal Jam accounts were affected by this data breach, as well as 7 million parent email accounts.

The account information that was leaked in this data breach primarily includes information that was entered when your account was first created, such as your gender and your date and/or year of birth. What was also included in this breach was the passwords associated with player accounts affected by the leak, albeit in encrypted form. This means that, while the passwords were leaked, they are not readable by normal means and would have to be carefully decrypted in order for hackers to access your Animal Jam account. If you already had a secure, complex password on your account, your account is probably safe. However, if your account had a weak password, it would be pretty easy for the hackers to decrypt it.

As a precaution, WildWorks is asking all Animal Jam players to change their passwords. If you have used the same password across multiple other accounts on other websites, we recommend changing those passwords as well. See last week's Agent Insights post for more info on how to make your password safe and secure.

Do not freak out over this; it is quite unlikely your individual account is at risk, considering that the passwords are all encrypted and considering that millions of other accounts were breached as well. Change your password to something secure and you will be alright.

For a more detailed analysis on the data breach and information that was compromised, we recommend you check out WildWorks' full official statement here.

We also recommend putting the email associated with your Animal Jam account through this website, which checks to see if that email has been included in any data breaches. If it has, the website will tell you which breaches it was involved in. If you no longer have access to that account, send an email to support@animaljam.com. If your parent email was included in the breach, we advise you to change the password linked to your parent dashboard account, or ask your parent to change it if it's their email account. If your email was affected by the Animal Jam breach, the website will show you this:

That's all for now. If you have any questions, you can contact WildWorks on Instagram, Twitter, or send an email to Animal Jam's customer support email (support@animaljam.com). WildWorks will likely continue to update us as their investigation continues. If any big developments happen, we will make another post on the matter.