More than 70 million credentials for Paypal, Netflix and Facebook have been compromised. There is now a risk of a larger wave of account hijacking to come.
About two weeks ago, a database containing tens of millions of stolen passwords and email addresses was leaked. The passwords were stolen through phishing, such as clicking on a link in an email that sends the victim to a bogus website where sensitive information is stolen.
David Jacoby, a freelance IT security expert, says this time the leak is unusually large.
– There were over 70 million accounts in this database, up to 25 million of which are accounts that have never been seen before in such leaked databases. In the end, it ends up in the so-called public Internet, and that’s when it becomes really dangerous, because they end up in the hands of cybercriminals, he tells tax-funded SR.
This includes social media credentials, gaming accounts, Spotify and streaming services. To protect yourself, Jacoby recommends having different passwords for different accounts and enabling two-step authentication when logging in. You can also check the Have I Been Pwned website to see if your email address has been compromised.
