HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — According to a report recently published by Cybernews researchers, 16 billion passwords were leaked online in what’s being considered one of the largest data breaches in history.
“We have about a third of a billion people living in the United States,” Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at McAfee.
The scale of this breach is one of the things that’s so concerning.
WATCH: Cyber expert urges people to be cautious after researchers share massive data breach
“One of the things that makes this data breach so impactful is the type of data that was in it,” said Grobman.
Researchers said the sensitive data that was leaked spans social media accounts, bank accounts and even government platforms.
Breaches like this put login credentials on the dark web for information to be sold and traded by cybercriminals.
“The reason that this is valuable to cybercriminals is if they can log into those accounts, they can essentially get access to all sorts of other data or even impersonate you,” said Grobman.
He told ABC Action News that it’s not just businesses that were targeted but also individuals, which means your personal information could now be at risk.
“A lot of this data came from what we call infostealers. This is something that a consumer would inadvertently install on their machine, and then it would monitor everything that you do. So when you log into a site, it would grab your user ID and password and basically send that to the cybercriminals, and it would ultimately make its way into these data dumps," said Grobman.
That’s why experts are urging you to act now.
- Update all of your passwords, especially for email, banking and social media platforms.
- Make sure your passwords are different for every single account.
- Enable two-factor identification wherever possible.
- Consider using scam detection technology to help flag risky messages for prevention.
“[It's] a really damaging set of information that’s out there, and it’s important that consumers take action to protect themselves,” said Grobman.
He believes that making sure all your passwords are different is a significant part of maintaining good cyber hygiene and can help protect your accounts.
“Even if you do a good job in keeping your passwords safe, if one site loses your password, it could then be taken by a cybercriminal and they can use it to try to break in or gain access to another site," said Grobman.
It’s possible cybercriminals will start hacking social media accounts to impersonate accounts to scam people for money, so make sure you’re on the lookout for any unusual online behavior from people you know.
“Everybody needs to be on their guard and be very careful,” said Grobman.
