This enormous breach, known as the “Mother of All Breaches,” exposed a whopping 26 billion records from big names like LinkedIn, Snapchat, Venmo, Adobe, and X (previously known as Twitter). Experts are saying this might just be the largest data spill we’ve seen.
But it’s not just usernames and passwords that got leaked. The breach spilled a ton of sensitive info, making it a goldmine for cybercriminals, according to Cybernews, the first to spot the breach on a not-so-secure website.
Cybersecurity pros, including Bob Dyachenko and the Cybernews team, are sounding the alarm bells. They say this data could fuel all sorts of nasty cyber activities, from identity theft and sneaky phishing to direct cyberattacks and sneaking into personal accounts.
Mantas Sasnauskas from Cybernews even told the Daily Mail that it’s likely most people are caught up in this mess.
However, there’s a tiny bit of good news: the 12 terabytes of data, which seem to be pulled together from various past breaches, doesn’t seem to include any fresh steals.
Cybernews stumbled upon this massive data pile just sitting out in the open on the web, accessible to anyone who happened upon it.
The folks behind this? Well, they might stay a mystery forever, but guesses range from data brokers to cybercriminals, or just someone sitting on a mountain of data.
Among the most affected is Tencent, a giant in the Chinese messaging world, with 1.4 billion records out in the open. Following are Weibo, MySpace, Twitter, Deezer, LinkedIn, and others including Adobe, Telegram, Dropbox, and even smaller sites like Doordash and Canva, not to mention Snapchat and various government bodies worldwide.
Cybernews has put together a list online where you can check if any sites you use got hit.
They’ve also got a tool for checking if your email or phone number got caught up in this.
The impact of this breach could be like nothing we’ve seen before, dwarfing previous breaches with the sheer amount of data leaked.
Back in November, Cybernews reported a breach with 3.2 billion records, which was then the record holder.
If you’re someone who uses the same password everywhere, from Netflix to Gmail, you might want to rethink that. This breach could lead to targeted attacks or a flood of spam in your inbox.
The advice from experts? Avoid repeat passwords, use a password manager for strong, unique passwords, and always enable two-factor authentication. Jake Moore from Eset stressed the importance of staying ahead of cybercriminals, changing passwords regularly, being on the lookout for phishing attempts, and keeping all accounts secured with extra layers of protection.
With so many systems interconnected and constantly under threat, it’s crucial to patch up any security gaps fast before your data ends up in the wrong hands.
