26 billion records stolen: Change your passwords now

It should come as no surprise to anyone that passwords and private data are in circulation illegally, after all, this is how money is made online. However, every now and then there are hacker attacks and leaks that reveal a shocking amount of data from supposedly secure services.

This leak, which includes 23 billion data sets, probably tops everything. Cybersecurity researcher Bob Dyachenko collaborated with the website Cybernews Billions of exempt records discovered in an instance whose owner is unknown.

These are data sets primarily from previous data breaches, but newer ones should also be included here. They come from many well-known online services and companies, such as Tencent, Weibo, MySpace, Twitter, Wattpad, NetEase, Deezer, LinkedIn, Zynga, Evite, Zing, Adobe, MyFitnessPal or Badoo.

According to the researchers, this accumulation of data is extremely dangerous because it can lead to a variety of cyberattacks, including identity theft and access to private, sensitive accounts.

Avoid this mistake and protect your data

Quite a few people use the same passwords for different online accounts and services. You should avoid this. If your data is included in the data collection mentioned above, criminals could access your other accounts, for example with gaming services such as PSN or Xbox Live, and possibly also with payment services and banks.

Therefore, create secure passwords, vary them and set up additional security measures such as two-factor authentication in your interest.

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