16 billion exposed passwords scare, but expert explains that the data would already be in circulation.
Last week was the giant number: about 16 billion passwords were exposed. As passwords would be access to numerous places.
The data were exposed for a short time and the identity of those who were controlling this information was not revealed.
The investigation started earlier this year. About 30 data sets were exposed, each containing each, on average, 550 million records.
One of the data sets especially affected the Lusophone population: more than 3.5 million credentials.
Although the origin of these passing words is not yet fully known, some of these data are used for access to social networks, business platforms, VPNs and other sites.
But there is also information from login of virtually all online services I can imagine: Apple, Facebook, Google, Telegram and even government platforms.
Announced this discovery as the Greater Information Escape ever. But an expert came to try to calm the reactions.
Peter Mackenzie, director of Sophos-Global Leading Company in Cybersecurity-understands the “scare” but explains: “Although it is natural to be scared of the huge volume of data exposed in this information escape, It is important to note that this is not a new threat – this data was probably already in circulation“.
“In fact, these data sets are a Information Amalgam. What we are understanding now is the depth of information that has been available to cybercriminals, ”he continues.
The statement sent to the ZAP stresses that these numbers serve to “we all remember that we should take proactive measures to update passwords, use a password management service and activate multifactor authentication whenever possible, to avoid problems with access credentials in the future.”
