Data of Nearly 200,000 Supporters of Hungarian Party TISZA Leaked Online

Major Data Breach at Hungarian Political Party TISZA Exposes PII of 198,500 Supporters

HIGH
November 8, 2025
4m read
Data Breach

Impact Scope

People Affected

198,500

Industries Affected

Government

Geographic Impact

Hungary (national)

Related Entities

Organizations

Other

TISZA

Full Report

Executive Summary

A significant data breach has impacted the Hungarian political party, TISZA, exposing the personally identifiable information (PII) of approximately 198,500 of its supporters. The breach originated from the party's "TISZA Világ" service in October 2025, with the data being widely circulated online in November 2025. The breach has been indexed by the Have I Been Pwned notification service. The leaked data is extensive, including full names, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, and usernames. This exposure creates a substantial risk for the affected individuals, who may now be targeted in sophisticated phishing campaigns, identity theft, and other fraudulent activities.


Threat Overview

This is a classic data breach incident resulting in the public disclosure of sensitive personal information. The key details are:

  • Victim: TISZA, a political party in Hungary.
  • Source of Breach: The party's "TISZA Világ" service.
  • Data Exposed: A comprehensive set of PII for 198,500 individuals.
  • Timeline: The breach occurred in October 2025 and was discovered to be circulating online in November 2025.

The motivation behind the attack is unknown but could range from politically motivated hacktivism to opportunistic cybercrime. Regardless of the motive, the outcome is a large-scale privacy violation with serious potential consequences.

Technical Analysis

While the exact method of the breach is not specified, attacks on web applications like the "TISZA Világ" service typically involve one of the following techniques:

  1. T1190 - Exploit Public-Facing Application: The attackers may have exploited a vulnerability, such as SQL injection or a remote code execution flaw, in the web application or its underlying components.
  2. T1078 - Valid Accounts: The compromise of an administrative account through phishing or credential stuffing could have granted the attackers direct access to the database.
  3. T1595.002 - Vulnerability Scanning: Attackers likely scanned the application for known vulnerabilities to identify an entry point.

Once access to the database was achieved, the attackers would have exfiltrated the data (T1005 - Data from Local System), likely in a single compressed file, before leaking it online.

Impact Assessment

The impact on the 198,500 affected supporters is severe:

  • Phishing and Scams: The leaked data is a goldmine for criminals. They can craft highly convincing, personalized phishing emails (spearphishing) using the victims' names, addresses, and political affiliation to trick them into revealing financial information or installing malware.
  • Identity Theft: With names, addresses, and phone numbers, criminals can attempt to open fraudulent accounts or commit other forms of identity theft.
  • Harassment and Doxing: As the data pertains to political affiliation, individuals could be targeted for online or physical harassment by political opponents.
  • Regulatory Scrutiny: The TISZA party will likely face investigation and potential fines under GDPR for failing to adequately protect the personal data of EU citizens.

Detection & Response

For organizations, detecting a breach of this nature involves:

  • Web Application Firewall (WAF): A properly configured WAF can detect and block common web attack techniques like SQL injection.
  • Database Activity Monitoring (DAM): DAM tools can alert on unusual database queries, such as a request to select all records from a user table.
  • File Integrity Monitoring (FIM): FIM on the web server can detect the creation of webshells or other malicious files.

For affected individuals, the response should be:

  • Password Hygiene: Change the password on any other account that may have used the same email and password combination.
  • Enable MFA: Enable Multi-factor Authentication on all sensitive accounts, especially email.
  • Be Vigilant: Be extremely cautious of unsolicited emails, text messages, and phone calls.

Mitigation

To prevent such breaches, organizations handling PII must implement fundamental security controls:

  1. Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC): Build security into the application from the ground up. This includes regular code reviews and security testing (SAST/DAST) to identify and fix vulnerabilities before deployment.
  2. Vulnerability Management: Continuously scan web applications and their infrastructure for vulnerabilities and patch them promptly. This aligns with D3-SU: Software Update.
  3. Access Control: Enforce the principle of least privilege for all accounts with access to the production environment and database. Administrative access should be protected with MFA.
  4. Data Encryption: All sensitive PII should be encrypted at rest in the database and in transit over the network. This is a core requirement of D3-FE: File Encryption. While it may not prevent the breach itself if application-level access is gained, it adds a critical layer of defense.

Timeline of Events

1
October 1, 2025
The data breach of the 'TISZA Világ' service occurs.
2
November 8, 2025
The breach is added to Have I Been Pwned and reported publicly.
3
November 8, 2025
This article was published

MITRE ATT&CK Mitigations

Regularly patching the web application and its dependencies is crucial to prevent exploitation of known vulnerabilities.

Mapped D3FEND Techniques:

Encrypting PII at rest in the database can protect the data even if the database file itself is stolen.

Mapped D3FEND Techniques:

Protecting administrative access to the application and database with MFA prevents credential-based takeovers.

Mapped D3FEND Techniques:

Using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) can provide a virtual patch against common web vulnerabilities like SQL injection.

Mapped D3FEND Techniques:

D3FEND Defensive Countermeasures

To prevent breaches of web applications like 'TISZA Világ', deploying a properly configured Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a critical first line of defense. A WAF sits in front of the web server and inspects all incoming HTTP/S traffic for malicious patterns. For the TISZA breach, a WAF could have detected and blocked the initial attack vector, whether it was a common vulnerability like SQL Injection (by spotting malicious SQL syntax in a request parameter) or another form of web exploit. The WAF should be run in 'blocking' mode, not just 'logging' mode, and its ruleset should be kept up-to-date to protect against the latest threats. This provides a 'virtual patch' for vulnerabilities that may exist in the application code, buying time for developers to fix the underlying issue.

To protect against credential-based attacks that could have led to the TISZA breach, enforcing a Strong Password Policy combined with MFA is essential. For all administrative accounts with access to the 'TISZA Világ' application backend or its database, passwords must be long, complex, and unique. More importantly, these accounts must be protected by Multi-factor Authentication (MFA). This ensures that even if an attacker obtains an administrator's password through phishing or a separate breach, they cannot gain access without the second factor. For the public-facing supporter accounts, the system should enforce password complexity requirements and offer MFA as an option to users, while also checking all new passwords against a list of known-compromised passwords to prevent reuse.

Sources & References

TISZA Világ Data Breach
Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned.com) November 8, 2025
Data of 200,000 Supporters of Hungarian Political Party Leaked Online
SecurityWeek (securityweek.com) November 8, 2025

Article Author

Jason Gomes

Jason Gomes

• Cybersecurity Practitioner

Cybersecurity professional with over 10 years of specialized experience in security operations, threat intelligence, incident response, and security automation. Expertise spans SOAR/XSOAR orchestration, threat intelligence platforms, SIEM/UEBA analytics, and building cyber fusion centers. Background includes technical enablement, solution architecture for enterprise and government clients, and implementing security automation workflows across IR, TIP, and SOC use cases.

Threat Intelligence & AnalysisSecurity Orchestration (SOAR/XSOAR)Incident Response & Digital ForensicsSecurity Operations Center (SOC)SIEM & Security AnalyticsCyber Fusion & Threat SharingSecurity Automation & IntegrationManaged Detection & Response (MDR)

Tags

Data BreachPIIHungaryPoliticsGDPRHave I Been Pwned

📢 Share This Article

Help others stay informed about cybersecurity threats

Continue Reading