Russian hackers amass 1.2B stolen Web credentials
Criminals in Russia have amassed a huge database of 1.2 billion stolen user names and passwords and half a billion email addresses, a U.S.-based Internet security company said Wednesday.
The data, believed to be the single biggest horde of stolen Internet identity information ever collected, was garnered from attacks that reached into every corner of the Web and hit around 420,000 sites, said Hold Security.
"Before, we were amazed when 10,000 passwords [went] missing. Now we're in the age of mass production of stolen information," Alex Holden, the company's founder and chief information security officer, told IDG News Service in a telephone interview. Hold Security didn't identify the websites that were breached, citing confidentiality agreements with clients, but it said they include household names as well as small websites.
