18 May Huge Data Beach: 711 Million E-Mail Details Published Online.
There has been some news recently about a large scale data mining malware program that has netted over 711 Million e-mail addresses. What makes this threat more urgent, it’s not only e-mail address that have been captured, but passwords and server settings as well. A data dump like this one available to anyone that know where to look is extremely dangerous. If you have one of the 711 million compromised e-mail addresses, you could soon start receiving more spam, or worse start sending out spam from a computer you have no control over.
There is a second indirect way this could affect you or your business. Other Accounts. Many millions of people use the same password for almost everything when they can. Passwords are notoriously difficult to remember if you take the effort to have a password for every different login you have. This means you may have other online vulnerabilities that you need to consider. Is your e-mail password the same as any other passwords? Facebook, Microsoft, gmail etc?
Example: We have a client who against our recommendations uses the same password wherever possible. This e-mail address is one of the 711 million who’s details have been compromised. Changing the e-mail password is the easy part. But… Because this threat displays passwords as well, and this client using the same password to make it easy to remember now must go through a dozen online accounts and change the passwords. The hacker has the login credentials for this clients Facebook, Microsoft Account, Gmail, Xero and other online cloud based services.
This threat seems to have been a malware threat called ‘onliner’. It likely sat on a computer mining data without detection. Even some of the top security companies have been caught out by it. Troy Hunt, owner of Have I Been Pwned, and the man that brought this threat to international attention even has his own e-mail on the list of hacked addresses.
So, how do you check if you’re affected by this?
1. Head over to haveibeenpwned.com and check your e-mail address in the box.
2. If the box below turns green, you are in luck. If it turns red, you should change e-mail password asap.
3. If you use the same password for ANY thing else online. You should change that too.
4. Even if you’re not on the list, take this as a warning. Change your passwords regularly.
If you are having issues with your passwords, changing passwords or e-mail settings once changed, we’re only a phone call away. Let us know on 1800 234 124. We’ll come to you. We service Melton, Ballan, Bacchsus Marsh, Caroline Springs & Taylors Lakes areas.