It has been reported by a cyber-security firm that huge number of credentials in the form of a cache are being presented for online sale in the black markets. About 360 million credentials or accounts have been reported to be affected through a series of hacking activities, in which one of them is considered to be the largest one in history.
Alex Holden who is the chief officer for the security information at Hold Security LLC has given a statement that they have cracked this data in the last three weeks.
He is of the view that around 360 million accounts have been affected through different hacking attacks, in which one them has reportedly hacked about 105 million accounts. This one is considered to be the biggest hack in the history.
- Holden said that, “These mind boggling figures are not meant to scare you and they are a product of multiple breaches which we are independently investigating. This is a call to action.”
The huge chunk of the information contains emails, passwords and addresses, and the information is mostly encrypted.
A similar breach was cracked by Hold Security back in October, but the information that was affected in the attack had encrypted passwords which made it very difficult for the hackers to use the information.
- The firm has given a statement that, “In October 2013, Hold Security identified the biggest ever public disclosure of 153 million stolen credentials from Adobe Systems Inc. One month later we identified another large breach of 42 million credentials from Cupid Media.”
Holden said that the hacks that have carried out more recently are yet to be reported publicly and the companies that have been infected by such attacks are yet to be aware of that. He further said that the firm will inform the affected companies as soon as those companies are identified by their staff.
Holden said that the information or the emails that have been affected by the attacks are from the major providers such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and many of the Fortune 500 companies.
Heather Bearfield who works for the cybersecuirty of an accounting form named Marcum LLP has stated to Rueters that though she has no information about the findings of Hold Security, but its seems quite plausible because of the fact that hackers can do more stolen credentials than they can do with the credit cards information, as many people often utilize the same passwords and login for different accounts.
- She added that, “They can get access to your actual bank account. That is huge. That is not necessarily recoverable funds.”
This latest revelation which has been made by Hold Security firm has just come to the scene months after a US retailer name Target has stated that the information about 110 million customers have been cracked by the hackers. The debit and credit card companies and the Hacked US retailer Target which are concerned here have stated that the consumers do not bear much of a risk because funds can be rapidly refunded in case of fraud losses.
