CyberX witnesses and warns of “the mother of all breaches”

#Cybersecurity experts called the huge leak that revealed 26 billion records “the mother of all breaches,” as it affected popular sites such as LinkedIn , Snapchat , Venmo , Adobe , and X , formerly known as Twitter .

#Backed_data includes more than just login credentials. Some of them are considered sensitive, making them valuable to malicious actors.

A colleague at CyberX confirmed that “the hack occurred on January 20 or perhaps earlier,” as he received an email on his registered email address on LinkedIn from the company with a one-time login link that expires in 15 minutes, with information about the date of the attempt to log into the account. The approximate login location is a town in a US state. In the last of the mentioned points, a request was made to change the password immediately if the real user is not the one trying to log in.

“The data set is extremely dangerous as threat actors can leverage it for a wide range of #cyberattacks, including #identitytheft, sophisticated phishing schemes, targeted cyberattacks, and unauthorized access to personal and sensitive accounts,” the colleague said.

The largest amount of data revealed came from the Chinese Tencent platform , where 1.4 billion records were hacked .

Weibo came in second place with 504 million records, followed by MySpace with 360 million, Twitter with 281 million, music streaming platform Deezer with 258 million, and LinkedIn with 251 million .

Other major sites include Adobe , Telegram , and Dropbox , as well as lesser-known sites like Doordash , Canva , Snapchat , and many government organizations around the world, including those in the United States .

We should never underestimate what cybercriminals can achieve with such limited information. If users use the same passwords  for another account, attackers can use this to move towards other, more sensitive accounts. Users whose data is included in the massive MOAB may become victims of #phishing attacks or receive high levels of spam emails.

Cyberax, as usual, advises against reusing the same passwords that are easy to guess for multiple accounts. It also recommends using a password manager to create and store strong logins . People should change their passwords immediately. Stay vigilant against #phishingemails and turn on two-factor authentication for all accounts, regardless of whether they were affected by the recent breach .