This Could Be The Largest Password Leak Of All Time

From time to time, we hear about data breaches that lead to passwords being leaked. Obviously this affects a lot of people, but it seems that the latest leak could be the biggest password leak of all time. According to a report from CyberNews, it seems that a 100GB text file was posted on a popular hacker forum.

Text files themselves are quite small, so for this to come in at 100GB, it’s not surprising and also very worrying that it contains a whopping 8.4 billion password entries. Given that there is no single service that has that many users (Facebook is over 2 billion), it’s safe to assume that this is a combination of passwords that have been stolen from previous data breaches and leaks.

As to whether or not this will affect you, there is a good chance that it might. There are websites like Have I Been Pwned that help you check your email address against data breaches to see if any of your accounts have been compromised, but it might be a good idea to change your passwords anyway.

Given that many people tend to reuse the same passwords, it won’t be hard for hackers to try their luck against multiple accounts to see if they can get in. In the meantime, it might not be a bad idea to consider using a password manager to help you generate and manage secure passwords for your online accounts.

Filed in General. Read more about Hack and Security. Source: bgr