Initially reported by Hold Security‘s Alex Holden and expanded by Reuters, a Russian hacker claims to be in possession of over 1 billion account credentials including Google, Hotmail and Yahoo accounts. If true, this would likely be the largest user credentials breach in history. Google, Yahoo and the other providers are investigating but have not yet commented on the size or scope of the breach or affected user populations. As a result of this hack, we can expect elevated levels of identify theft, data breaches and system intrusions.
Research by PCWorld and others indicates that between 61% and 73% of users reuse the same login passwords across multiple platforms. Also, users often choose easy passwords and reminder hints such as children’s or pet’s names, birthdays, home addresses and generic terms such as…can you believe it?…. “password”, “admin” and “12345”. (If I just mentioned your password, please change it now!)
Password Manager programs such as Dashlane, Zoho, Keeper and True Key can be helpful in generating strong, unique login credentials that you don’t have to remember… however, you have to use a very strong master password for the password program manager itself, because a hacker could gain access to all of your credentials by hacking the password manager.
By the way, today is World Password Day.
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