Over 1 Billion Compromised Credentials Are Pwned and Leaked
Two databases collecting hundreds of millions of compromised credentials—usernames and passwords stolen by attackers or leaked to the Web—were exposed this week in separate incidents.
On May 5, security services provider Hold Security reported that a Russian hacker had given the firm a database of 272 million unique credentials, more than 42 million of which the company had not previously encountered. The announcement came two days after a report came out that a vulnerability in the PwnedList service of security firm InfoArmor had exposed the company's database of 822 million stolen credentials. In that incident, a security researcher found a flaw that could allow anyone to retrieve compromised data from the database.
