PSA: 773 million email addresses and 21 million passwords exposed by hackers
You can check whether your email address is affected by the breach. Hit the link to find out how.
Nearly 773 unique email addresses and over 21 million unique passwords have been exposed by hackers in what is the biggest ever breach according to security researcher Troy Hunt.
Hunt claimed that data set appeared on MEGA, a cloud service which is commonly referred as "a popular hacking forum". The collection of email addresses and passwords is said to be from a breach of breaches; it aggregates over 2,000 leaked databases that contain passwords whose protective hashing has been cracked.
As the data set has been loaded into "Have I Been Pwned" - a site which Hunt maintains to help users search whether their account credentials have been compromised by any breach at any point in time -, you can enter your email address to check if you are affected. The site will also inform you of the number of previous breaches you've been a victim of.
If your email address is affected, it is highly recommended that you change the password immediately. Make the new password really long and include a good mix of different characters so that it is harder to guess or crack. Here's a guide on how to create stronger passwords.
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