Sixteen Billion Reasons to Stop Reusing Passwords
Source: Mashable Security researchers recently uncovered a massive archive of exposed credentials that includes over sixteen billion passwords [1]. This compilation is not the result of a single security breach. Instead, it brings together logs from years of malware infections that quietly harvested login data from millions of infected systems. The files were discovered on an open instance of a cloud hosting platform, making them briefly accessible to anyone who knew where to look. The leak includes credentials linked to well-known platforms such as Google, Microsoft, and Netflix. However, these companies were not breached. Rather, the data comes from users who had stored their passwords in browsers or files that were compromised by infostealer malware [1]. What makes this leak especially dangerous is the potential for automated attacks. Cybercriminals can use the data in credential stuffing campaigns, trying known username and password combinations across countless websites. Since man...