According to an official document from the FBI, a Russian gang has been involved in a breach of 1.2 billion login credentials.
Furthermore, the records state the gang as “CyberVor” and have been charged with theft of 1.2 billion login credentials and half a billion email addresses.
FBI’s investigations were based on the findings of a security company “Hold security” who disclosed work of a Russian hacin gang behind the thefts. FBI then found a user by the name of “Mr.grey” selling login credentials and email addresses. Most of the login credentials belonged to Facebook or Twitter accounts, according to Reuters.
Hold security earlier this year also revealed a hack of 420,000 websites, but this investigation has no relation with that. FBI has so far charged three men for hacking into several of the leading websites like JP Morgan Chase.
This is not the first time when Russian hackers have been accused of stealing such a huge ammount of login crednetials. In September 2015, the infamous Russian hacker, Vladimir Drinkman, had admitted his contribution in what was regarded by the Justice Department as “the largest such scheme ever prosecuted in the United States.”
Vladimir Drinkman has pleaded guilty and faces court trial along with four other defendants. The group was accused of hacking corporate computers including machines owned by firms such as Diners Singapore, Nasdaq, JCP, 7-Eleven, Dow Jones, Jet Blue, Ingenicard and Visa Jordan and stealing around 160million credit card numbers.
Due to the hacks that they conducted, the corporate sector suffered great losses (approximately $300million), which doesn’t include the losses suffered by private individuals whose credit card data was also stolen.
Reuters
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