4.93 million Gmail passwords leaked by hackers

NEW DELHI: Russian hackers have leaked the email IDs and passwords of as many as 4.93 million Google accounts. The same Google account password is used across all Google products, such as Gmail, Drive, Plus, YouTube, Maps etc.

The account details have been posted on bitcoin forum btcsec.com by a user named Tvskit. On the forum, Tvskit has said that approximately 60% of the passwords are still active.

Google in a blog post, however, refuted the claim and said that only 2% of the passwords still work and also said that its automated anti-hijacking systems would have blocked many of the login attempts.

While acknowledging the leak, Google said that this is not due to a breach in its own systems.

It said: “Often, these credentials are obtained through a combination of other sources. For instance, if you reuse the same username and password across websites, and one of those websites gets hacked, your credentials could be used to log into the others. Or attackers can use malware or phishing schemes to capture login credentials.”

Copyright @Times of India