Chess.com confirms data breach

Chess.com is a very popular service that enables people to play chess with each other online, while also offering a social forum for communities and a news section that keeps players updated on the latest in the sport. It has over a hundred million users, who play millions of games daily collectively. For example, right now, the counter at the top of the website shows that roughly 20 million games have been played today, and almost 200,000 people are online simultaneously. Now, the platform has disclosed a data breach affecting some players.

As reported by Bleeping Computer, Chess.com has sent notifications to some customers informing them that the service was indirectly impacted in a data breach that affected a third-party file transfer app that was used by the platform. This incident occurred between June 5 and June 18 this year, with the company finding out about the breach on June 19.

Chess.com immediately notified relevant law enforcement authorities and solicited security experts to assess the scope of the breach and contain it. It was successful in this process, but the data of almost 4,500 users was exposed. This likely included personally identifiable information (PII), but no financial data was accessed.

On a platform boasting 100 million users, 4,500 may sound like a small figure since it only encompasses 0.0045% of its customers. However, the service is still giving impacted customers a couple of years of identity theft and credit monitoring services. Those affected have until December 3, 2025, to enroll in the complimentary services. Chess.com has emphasized that only the third-party file transfer app it used was impacted; its own infrastructure remains robust and unaffected. It's unclear which app was breached, but it's encouraging for now that the stolen data has not been spotted online or identified as being misused by malicious actors.

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Posted Saturday 6 September 2025 at 3:33 am AEST (my time).

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