Just two days ago it was announced that a new massive leak has exposed over 16 Billion passwords and login credentials, including Apple, Google, Facebook and others. This "new" massive data breach has caused havoc, sparking wide media coverage from known websites such as Forbes, Dailymail, Time Magazine, filled with warnings and doom-wongering. At first, I was completely puzzled, another data breach? It's certainly concerning to have your login credentials leaked to the darknet and certainly a victim to automated attacks. I decided to do some digging on whether this was a new leak or the media was overexaggerating.
I stumbled upon the following article on Bleepingcomputer, which claims that this isn't a new data breach, or a data breach at all. Quoting from the article itself
it appears to just be a compilation of previously leaked credentials stolen by infostealers, exposed in data breaches, and via credential stuffing attacks.
To be clear, this is not a new data breach, or a breach at all, and the websites involved were not recently compromised to steal these credentials.
Instead, these stolen credentials were likely circulating for some time, if not for years. It was then collected by a cybersecurity firm, researchers, or threat actors and repackaged into a database that was exposed on the Internet.
Thus, from my understanding, it's a compilation of stolen credentials that were collected from a cybersecurity firm and then re-exposed to the internet. The datasets are to be stored in a format usually associated with the malware "infostealer".
An infostealer is malware that attempts to steal credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, and other data from an infected device. Over the years, infostealers have become a massive problem, leading to breaches worldwide.
Any thoughts about this? Do you feel safe on the internet and what precautions do you take to ensure your safety of your personal details, such as your login credentials? Have you ever fallen a victim through any of these leaks (stolen wallet, account etc)? Is there a way to be truly safe out there?
Always search the source and doubt what you're reading, sometimes, even the most "reputable" websites will post overexaggerated articles or simply, something that isn't entirely true. Always do your own research.
Source:
Bleepingcomputer.com
