21 Million Passwords Have Been Breached
As well as 773 Million Email Addresses. And they are all up for sale. An unprecedented breach of the security of millions of people have been released and placed up for the highest bid. The time is now to secure yourself-now, before it’s too late.
As well as 773 Million Email Addresses
This according to cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt who operates the website Have I Been Pwned which allows you to manually search your email and password to see if they have been breached at any point in time.
Mr. Hunt says that a massive, nearly 1TB in size, the data file was uploaded to the internet and contains dehashed passwords — which means that the protective security scrambling those passwords has been cracked, turning them into raw, readable, text.
Worse, the hacker responsible for this breach has apparently decided to sell this data and has already opened bidding on it. While this data is a little older (it’s data exposed in the last 2–3 years) it could still be dangerous. To say nothing of the possibility that there could be more data out there in the hands of this or other unscrupulous actors.
Now, this doesn’t mean that your email has been compromised, but it would be a very good idea to check this right now. Just use the links I added above and check to see if your email address shows up. If it does you’ll need to change your password.
But changing your password isn’t enough on its own. Even if you follow good password practices (a long, randomly generated string of words accompanied by Case changes, numbers, and symbols) you’d do well to consider going the extra mile and getting a password manager. This is especially important because proper password practice is hard. Most people who end up in these breaches are using passwords that are too simple or are using a single password across multiple sites (both very dangerous to do).
A password manager will allow you to generate strong passwords and maintain them within a special archive which is, in itself, incredibly secure. That means you only need to keep track of one ridiculously complex password instead of many of them.