Has your email been stolen in massive data leak?

Dubbed a ‘mega-leak’, more than 2.2 billion stolen emails and passwords have surfaced online in a leak that is growing bigger by the day.

First reported on January 17, 2019 by researcher Troy Hunt, the leak included an astonishing number of email addresses and password combinations. However, upon further investigation the list of breached data was even bigger than first suspected, with 2.2 billion user’s worth of data included.

The data is apparently an amalgamation of leaked email addresses and passwords from other various leaks in recent years (Yahoo, LinkedIn, Dropbox, etc.) bundled together in an easily downloadable package for illicit purposes.

It has been reported by tech website Wired that the leak is being shared among hacker circles on forums and through torrents providing what is essentially a ‘phone book’ of email address credentials. This effectively allows any would-be hacker to attempt to gain access to websites using those credentials in the hopes that the password remains unchanged.

How prepared are you for a massive data loss?

The ability of a business to recover quickly from an IT disaster cannot be underestimated. Getting back on your feet in a speedy manner can help avert financial loss, harm to reputation and other negative impacts. While we all hope that our own businesses will never be affected by disruptive incidents like cyber attacks, theft, fire or flooding, they can happen and failing to prepare is preparing to fail!

A good place to start when considering how prepared you are for a data loss is to look at some of the potential scenarios that could enable one, as while you may think you have plans in place you might not have covered every angle.