DarkBeam leaks billions of email and password combinations
The leaked logins present cybercriminals with almost limitless attack capabilities.
Image by Cybernews.
The leaked logins present cybercriminals with almost limitless attack capabilities.
DarkBeam, a digital risk protection firm, left an Elasticsearch and Kibana interface unprotected, exposing records with user emails and passwords from previously reported and non-reported data breaches.
According to CEO of SecurityDiscovery Bob Diachenko, who first identified the leak, the now-closed instance contained over 3.8 billion records.
DarkBeam has apparently been collecting information to alert its customers in case of a data breach. The incident will most likely affect more than DarkBeam users alone.
The data leak, first identified on September 18th, was closed instantly after Diachenko informed the company about the issue.
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Diachenko claims that such data leaks usually happen due to human error, for example when employees forget to password-protect the instance after maintenance.
Cybernews contacted DarkBeam for comment but received no reply at the time of writing.
Limitless attack capabilities
Among the leaked data, there were 16 collections named “email 0-9” and “email A-F,” each containing 239,635,000 records.
Exposing the collections of login pairs – emails and passwords – is dangerous as it provides malicious actors with almost limitless attack capabilities.
While the majority of the leaked data comes from already known sources, the extensive and organized compilation of this data presents a significant threat to individuals whose credentials have been disclosed.
Threat actors might target affected users with crafted phishing campaigns using their personal information. Phishing messages often impersonate trusted people or organizations to trick victims into giving up sensitive data.
Similar databases – large combinations of email and password pairs – have been leaked in the past. So far, the largest leaked password collection of all time, dubbed RockYou, contained 8.4 billion password entries, which had presumably been combined from previous data leaks and breaches.
What to do if your password was leaked?
If you suspect that one or more of your passwords may have been leaked, we’ve got your back:
- Use our personal data leak checker to see if your data – email, phone number, or password – has been leaked.
- If your data has been compromised, make sure to change your passwords across your online accounts. Use a strong password generator to protect your accounts.
- Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on all of your online accounts.
- Watch out for incoming spam emails, unsolicited texts, and phishing messages. Don’t click on anything that seems suspicious, including emails and texts from senders you don’t recognize.
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