Huge Data Breach Exposes 16 Billion Apple, Google, Facebook Passwords And More

It might be high time to rotate your least-changed passwords, if not all of them. The research team at Cybernews has been quietly tracking stolen credential datasets released this year, and the figures aren't good: a total of 16 billion records leaked (so far), including government accounts, Apple, Google, Facebook, Telegram logins, VPN credentials, among many other types of logins.

The team found 30 exposed, easily accessible datasets with stolen access information, ranging from tens of millions to a humongous one with 3.5 billion records, pertaining to a Portuguese-speaking population (Brazil, if we had to guess given the size). While the provenance and relationship between the contents was sometimes ascertained, many of the datasets were completely unnamed. Additionally, while most of the information is apparently login-password sets, there's a collection of login tokens and cookies, potentially letting attackers skip some forms of 2FA altogether. The fact that ...