3.2 billion emails and passwords exposed online — what you need to know

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iii.2 billion emails and passwords exposed online — what yous need to know

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A whopping 3.ii billion password-username pairs are up for grabs in an unnamed online hacking forum. But don't panic — the data is cipher new. It'southward a compilation of stolen credentials from dozens of old information breaches, some going back x years.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't exist aware that your erstwhile passwords are floating out there. Yes, your passwords, and ours also. Pretty much anyone who's ever created more than 3 online accounts has had a countersign compromised by now.

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This new treasure trove of dusty old data was publicized by Lithuanian English-language website Cybernews, which says the compromised credentials are a mishmash of data from breaches at LinkedIn (2012, 117 million compromised accounts), Netflix (nosotros don't actually retrieve whatever Netflix data breach) and others.

We haven't seen the data ourselves, but we imagine that the massive Yahoo breaches of 2013 (3 billion) and 2014 (500 million) are probably in there somewhere.

Cybernews said the database is being advertised every bit the "Compilation of Many Breaches (Rummage)." It'south in a password-protected container, and the information has been cleaned up, categorized and fabricated searchable. The password to the container is bachelor to authorized users of the hacker forum.

"Most of the contents are almost all publicly available," the poster who put upwards the link in the hacker forum writes in a screen grab captured by Cybernews. "All data is in an alphabetical tree-like structure," and "a query script is included."

The link affiche said the total number of credentials amounted to 3.8 billion, but Cybernews got agree of the data and boiled it down to 3.ii billion subsequently removing duplicates.

How yous tin can minimize the damage from data leaks

So what practice you lot demand to do near this? You can use Cybernews' own data-leak checker, which claims to hold 2.v billion compromised email addresses, to run into if your electronic mail accost is in the mix.

You can besides utilize Australian security researcher Troy Chase'due south HaveIBeenPwned website, which checks both your e-mail address and your countersign, but never at the aforementioned time. Odds are that at least i of your quondam passwords and some of your email addresses are in at least i of these databases.

Merely overall, you lot need to notice a few simple rules.

1) Data breaches happen, and it'due south not your fault.

2) Don't reuse passwords. If you exercise, a data alienation affecting 1 of your accounts volition touch many others too.

3) Make all your passwords strong and unique.

4) Using one of the best password managers will brand Rules 2 and 3 piece of cake to follow.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom'southward Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He'due south been rooting effectually in the information-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random Boob tube news spots and even moderated a panel give-and-take at the CEDIA habitation-technology briefing. You can follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/3-2-billion-passwords-leaked

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