The cyber security world has been shocked after 184 million records of emails, passwords and logins were leaked in plain text in the biggest data leak of the decade, according to a report in Wired magazine. In this case of cyber security breach, a database containing 184 million records has been exposed, which includes passwords and logins of major platforms like Apple, Google, Facebook and banking portals. This 47 GB data also includes 220 email addresses with dot gov domains from 29 countries. Which is likely to be a national security threat for those countries. A researcher found that this leaked data is freely available online. To get it, there was no need to cross any encryption or any authorization wall or security safeguard. This database was labeled as a cyber criminal’s dream working list. Due to which cyber criminals can get this sensitive data of users with a single click. Through this database, cyber criminals can hack the accounts of people associated with Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and government portals.
This data leak is unique because it did not even have to follow any standard login protocols. This dataset also includes active login link URLs through which a session can be started without any username or password. In which Apple’s iCloud and iTunes, Google’s Gmail and Drive, Facebook and Instagram logins, Microsoft’s Office 365, Teams and Outlook passwords and logins are also available as metadata and can be started directly in the session. These records can serve as a toolkit for fraud, identity theft and account takeover. This dataset is available on a public cloud server without any security protocols. However, according to the company on whose server this database was found, they have shut down the system and now this data is safe. But it cannot be said with certainty that it has not fallen into the hands of any other cyber criminals.
