In a world where global connectivity and accessibility is on everyone’s fingertips, it’s no surprise that there is always a loophole for hackers to manipulate for either profit or some particular gain. However, this time data breaching has escalated to a whole new level as hackers have leaked over 3.2 billion email accounts and their respective passwords.
This leak has now even surpassed 2017’s breach compilation which, according to the intelligence analysts at 4iQ, consisted of over 1.4 billion emails and passwords placed in a single database laid out in plain text. This data breach, however, has been deemed as the “Compilation of Many Breaches” (COMB) which includes stolen LinkedIn, Gmail, Netflix data logins and much more.
Furthermore, COMB is not a new breach but rather a compilation of multiple breaches organized alphabetically in a tree like structure. The breaching of such emails and passwords, at such a huge amount, is primarily due to users recycling same passwords for all their respective accounts. This allows attackers to bypass Netflix, Gmail, and LinkedIn accounts resulting in spam messages and emails sent to the users. This may event extend new yet high levels of attacks if the email is found in the COMB database.
Read more: Govt invites ethical hackers to identify Ehsaas Program’s security vulnerabilities
If by any chance you believe your email or any account has been breached or is facing any suspicious ads or messages, we recommend placing your email in this data leak checker by CyberNews. In order to prevent malicious attacks from hackers, we highly recommend using secure password managers and creating strong yet unique passwords for every account which cannot be recycled.
