{"id":371,"date":"2025-06-20T16:46:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T16:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/?p=371"},"modified":"2025-06-24T10:04:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T10:04:55","slug":"billions-of-login-credentials-have-been-leaked-online-cybernews-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/20\/billions-of-login-credentials-have-been-leaked-online-cybernews-researchers-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Billions of login credentials have been leaked online, Cybernews researchers say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Researchers at cybersecurity outlet Cybernews say that billions of login credentials have been leaked and compiled into datasets online, giving criminals \u201cunprecedented access\u201d to accounts consumers use each day.<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/cybernews.com\/security\/billions-credentials-exposed-infostealers-data-leak\/\">report published<\/a> this week, Cybernews researchers have recently discovered 30 exposed datasets that each contain a vast amount of login information \u2014 amounting to a total of 16 billion compromised credentials. That includes user passwords for a range of popular platforms including Google, Facebook and Apple.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related left\">\n<h2 class=\"widget-title\" data-curated-ids=\"\" data-relation-type=\"automatic-primary-section\">Related Articles<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/21\/denver-crypto-school-lawsuit-coinbridge\/\" title=\"Phony Denver crypto school robbed Florida man of $860K, he says\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tPhony Denver crypto school robbed Florida man of $860K, he says\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/20\/why-colorados-massive-home-inventory-failed-to-spark-buyer-interest-in-may-real-estate-voices\/\" title=\"Why Colorado\u2019s massive home inventory failed to spark buyer interest in May\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tSponsored: Why Colorado\u2019s massive home inventory failed to spark buyer interest in May\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/20\/safeway-albertsons-strike-walkouts-expand\/\" title=\"Safeway and Albertsons negotiations stall again, union plans to expand Colorado walkouts\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tSafeway and Albertsons negotiations stall again, union plans to expand Colorado walkouts\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/20\/dia-denver-hotel-purchase-voyage-capital\/\" title=\"Partially built hotel near DIA sells for nearly $22M\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tPartially built hotel near DIA sells for nearly $22M\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/20\/colorado-escrow-payments-homeownership-costs\/\" title=\"Colorado tops country when it comes to this key cost for homebuyers\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tColorado tops country when it comes to this key cost for homebuyers\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Sixteen billion is roughly double the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/science-africa-pollution-climate-and-environment-1c70df435acda74301ff2df96a86dd43\">amount of people on Earth<\/a> today, signaling that impacted consumers may have had credentials for more than one account leaked. Cybernews notes that there are most certainly duplicates in the data and so \u201cit\u2019s impossible to tell how many people or accounts were actually exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also important to note that the leaked login information doesn\u2019t span from a single source, such as one breach targeting a company. Instead, it appears that the data was stolen through multiple events over time, and then compiled and briefly exposed publicly, which is when Cybernews reports that its researchers discovered it.<\/p>\n<p>Various infostealers are most likely the culprit, Cybernews noted. Infostealers are a form of malicious software that breaches a victim\u2019s device or systems to take sensitive information.<\/p>\n<p>Many questions remain about these leaked credentials, including whose hands the login credentials are in now. But, as data breaches become more and more common in today\u2019s world, experts continue to stress the importance of <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/tech-tip-data-breach-91461eb71bdfa5f29158740efe5fb692\">maintaining key \u201ccyber hygiene.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re worried about your account data potentially being exposed in a recent breach, the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/tech-tip-data-breach-91461eb71bdfa5f29158740efe5fb692\">first thing you can do<\/a> is change your password \u2014 and avoid using the same or similar login credentials on multiple sites. If you find it too hard to memorize all your different passwords, consider a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/how-to-use-password-managers-tech-tip-fbf9d9ed8ccfe97bae6fae5c34697440\">password manager<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/google-apple-passkey-password-cybersecurity-e058dbdd304ff90c9b49499cd121bb88\">passkey<\/a>. And also add multifactor authentication, which can serve as a second layer of verification through your phone, email or USB authenticator key.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Researchers at cybersecurity outlet Cybernews say that billions of login credentials have been leaked and compiled into datasets online, giving criminals \u201cunprecedented access\u201d to accounts consumers use each day. According to a report published this week, Cybernews researchers have recently discovered 30 exposed datasets that each contain a vast amount of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinhollenbeck.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}