'Mother of all breaches'! In shocking cyber crime, 26 bn records leaked in largest data breach ever

Cybersecurity experts found a shocking cyber crime - 12 terabytes of data has been leaked, which is said to be the largest data breach ever discovered. It has been dubbed as the 'mother of all breaches'.

In shocking news, 26 billion records of data have been leaked! Check details of the largest data breach ever here. (Pexels)

Cybercrime and data theft have become a common problem for organizations and the general public. Personal and sensitive data is being shared all over the internet by hackers without anyone's knowledge and new data breaches and invasions of privacy are recorded virtually on a daily basis. While organizations are taking strong cybersecurity measures, it is still not enough to protect people from data breaches. And things are getting worse. In the latest cybercrime, it has now been revealed that 26 billion records, which is approximately 12 terabytes of personal data and credentials from companies and organizations, were leaked. This data leak is a combination of multiple previous breaches and it has been dubbed as the 'Mother of all breaches'.

Biggest data leak ever found

According to a Cybernews report, Bob Dyachenko a cybersecurity researcher and owner at SecurityDiscovery.com found that the breach contains 26 billion records. The owner of the records is said to be unknown, however, it is expected that the person could be a data broker or a cybercriminal who may conduct identity theft, scams, cyber attacks, and more. Dyachenko said, “The dataset is extremely dangerous as threat actors could leverage the aggregated data for a wide range of attacks, including identity theft, sophisticated phishing schemes, targeted cyberattacks, and unauthorized access to personal and sensitive accounts.”

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The records of data not only contain credentials but more sensitive information that can be used to blackmail people and businesses. As per reports, the data is a compilation of previous as well as new data breaches which can be used to exploit people. The shocking revelation highlighted that the largest amount of data comes from Tencent QQ, a popular Chinese instant messaging app with 1.4 billion records. Additionally, millions of data records came from Weibo, MySpace, Twitter, and other platforms. Also, the data is collected from various locations including the US, Brazil, Germany, Philippines, and Turkey.

What is the solution?

While hackers find ingenious new ways to perpetrate cyber crimes, people themselves are found to be quite careless as far as cybersecurity is concerned.

“If users use the same passwords for their Netflix account as they do for their Gmail account, attackers can use this to pivot towards other, more sensitive accounts.” the researcher added.

So, the first thing a user online needs to do is set up a very strong password that contains letters, numerals and special characters. Also, the same password should never be used for two separate platforms. And it goes beyond saying that passwords and usernames must never be shared with anyone on social media or otherwise on calls, especially with strangers who promise windfall gains. And lastly, try and get two-factor authentication wherever possible.

The revealed data is quite concerning and scary as people have no idea how and when their personal information is being shared by dangerous tricksters. And therefore, the more secure you make your online presence, the better.

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