
After the fateful Collection # 1, Collections # 2-5 arrives
Just a few weeks ago, the cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt made known through his personal blog one of the greatest leaks in history. A gigantic 87 GB database, baptized under the name Collection # 1, consisting of 12,000 different text files and up to 2,700 million lines in which we can find up to 2,692,818,238 entries with personal user information .
Following this disclosure, analysts at the Hasso Platter Institute in Postdam (Germany) have continued to investigate this database with the aim of discovering new details about it. Thanks to this, the team has reached Collections # 2-5. A new database that occupies 845 GB, with 25 million records in total, through which 2,200 million unique user names and associated passwords have come to light .
Just a few weeks ago, the cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt made known through his personal blog one of the greatest leaks in history. A gigantic 87 GB database, baptized under the name Collection # 1, consisting of 12,000 different text files and up to 2,700 million lines in which we can find up to 2,692,818,238 entries with personal user information .
Following this disclosure, analysts at the Hasso Platter Institute in Postdam (Germany) have continued to investigate this database with the aim of discovering new details about it. Thanks to this, the team has reached Collections # 2-5. A new database that occupies 845 GB, with 25 million records in total, through which 2,200 million unique user names and associated passwords have come to light .
They reveal one of the greatest data leaks in history
It is estimated that 773 million accounts and more than 21 million passwords have been exposed in a forum for hackers
“An unprecedented amount of information and credentials”
Speaking to Wired , the founder of the company Phosphorus.io , Chris Rouland says it is the largest collection of security breaches he has seen throughout his career: “They keep an unprecedented amount of information and credentials.” Although this database contains data from hacks already known as Yahoo, LinkedIn and Dropbox, many of the credentials were not included in the databases of cybersecurity companies.
Unlike previous security breaches, hackers who collect this data are not selling user information, but are sharing it for free on the Internet. For that same reason, these databases are circulating with “unprecedented fluency,” as Troy Hunt explains.
Find out if you are among those affected
To discover if you are one of those affected by this new data leak you will only have to go to the website of the Hasso Platter Institute . Once there, the analysts will ask you to enter your email address and send the form to the institute to help you get out of doubt.
In less than a minute, the team of researchers will send you an email to your email account through which they will explain if you are in those affected. If you are one of them, you better change your passwords as soon as possible to prevent future attacks or theft of information. These are some of the tips to create a strong password.
How to create a secure password
If you want to protect your account with a good password, the security firm Keeper recommends using a variety of characters. That is, your new password should have upper and lower case letters, numbers and some special symbol, such as a hyphen or an exclamation point . Thanks to this, hackers will have more difficulty accessing your account since you do not follow a logical pattern of action.
On the other hand, the cybersecurity firm also recommends not using any of the most common passwords or those words that appear in the dictionary . If you can’t think of any password, on the Internet you can find password managers that will help you get yours. From Google Chrome to other platforms such as 1Password or LastPass , among others.