Troy Hunt

JANUARY 29, 2024

That's the analogy I often use to describe the data breach "personal stash" ecosystem, but with one key difference: if you trade a baseball card then you no longer have the original card, but if you trade a data breach which is merely a digital file, it replicates.

Data breaches 288

Data breaches Passwords Advertising Personal Security 288

Troy Hunt

JANUARY 16, 2019

Many people will land on this page after learning that their email address has appeared in a data breach I've called "Collection #1". Collection #1 is a set of email addresses and passwords totalling 2,692,818,238 rows. It's made up of many different individual data breaches from literally thousands of different sources.

Data breaches 280

Data breaches Passwords Password Management Accountability 280

The Last Watchdog

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

Until biometrics or a quantum solution change our everyday approach to encryption, passwords remain our first line of defense against data breaches, hackers, and thieves. Proper password hygiene doesn’t require a degree in rocket science. 1) Create sufficiently-complex passwords. 2) NEVER reuse a password.

Passwords 244

Passwords Password Management Accountability Data breaches 244

Troy Hunt

NOVEMBER 7, 2018

The first one was about HSBC disclosing a "security incident" which, upon closer inspection, boiled down to this: The security incident that HSBC described in its letter seems to fit the characteristics of brute-force password-guessing attempts, also known as a credentials stuffing attack.

Passwords 234

Passwords Accountability Hacking Education 234

Troy Hunt

JANUARY 8, 2019

Very often, those addresses are accompanied by other personal information such as passwords. Clearly a Spotify breach, right? No, and the passwords are the very first thing that starts to give it all away. The attack is simple but effective due to the prevalence of password reuse. Billions of them, in some cases.

Hacking 221

Hacking Passwords Accountability Data breaches 221

Malwarebytes

JANUARY 31, 2024

On January 23, 2024, we reported on the discovery of billions of exposed records online, now commonly referred to as the “ mother of all breaches ” (MOAB). Since then, the source of the dataset has been identified as data breach search engine Leak-Lookup. But it does nothing to enforce that restriction.

Data breaches 142

Data breaches Identity Theft Passwords Internet 142

Troy Hunt

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

The operator of the service (Kayo) reached out to me earlier this week and advised they'd noticed a collection of files uploaded to the site which appeared to contain personal data from a breach. Concerned that the data may indicate a previously unknown breach, Kayo then sent me over a total of 755 files totaling 1.8GB.

Passwords 169

Passwords Password Management Data breaches Accountability 169