Security experts have just discovered a huge hacked database, containing no less than 26 billion pieces of stolen information. Clearly the largest leak ever discovered to date.
Bob Diachenko, cybersecurity researcher and founder of Security Discovery, and the team at Cybernews, a site specializing in security has just made a worrying discovery. These experts have in fact got their hands on a gigantic pirated database, measuring 12 terabytes (TB) and containing no less than 26 billion pieces of information, which was exposed on a platform accessible to the public and whose owner has not yet been identified. Called MOAB (for Mother of All Breaches), this collection exposes files from thousands of leaks, breaches and private databases which have been compiled and then reindexed. This leak is now considered “the biggest ever seen to date”.
Hacking: 26 billion pieces of data exposed in thea “mother of all breaches”
Obviously, a hack of this scale represents a real danger for the thousands of Internet users whose information has been leaked. Victims could then be targeted by malicious actors adept at phishing or even identity theft. “This dataset is extremely dangerous, as cybercriminals could use the aggregated information for a wide range of attacks, including identity theft, sophisticated phishing schemes, targeted cyberattacks and access unauthorized to personal and sensitive accounts“, indicates Cybernews. The risks of attacks are also very high because of the common reuse of connection information. Hackers can indeed try to use the stolen information to connect to other sites and to other accounts.
In total, billions of pieces of highly sensitive information were exposed, including email addresses, Uber Eats passwords and even documents from various government organizations in the United States, Germany, Turkey, the Philippines, in Brazil and other nations. “Leaked data contains much more information than just identifiers – much of the exposed data is sensitive and, therefore, valuable to malicious actors”, continues Cybernews. Among the largest sources are 1.4 billion records from Tencent QQ, a messaging application, but also hundreds of millions of records from Twitter, LinkedIn, Deezer, Weibo, MySpace and other platforms.
Fortunately, there are several ways to find out if you have been affected by this data breach. To do this, simply use the tool offered by Cybernews or that of Have I Been Pwned to verify whether your information has been exposed in the MOAB. Do not hesitate to consult our practical sheet on the subject to find out more. If you learn that your information has been revealed, we strongly recommend that you do what is necessary to protect yourself, namely change the passwords concerned and above all opt for different usernames and passwords for each of your accounts on the platforms. online. To do this, it may be wise to use a password manager. Simple practices that can make a data leak much less damaging than it could be.