Malware has compromised more than 1 billion passwords according to a new security alert—here’s what you need to know and do.
list of hacked passwordslurking stealthily in your email, a light is being shone upon the insecurity of passwords. Now a new security alert has been issued as researchers confirm that malware has stolen more than 1 billion passwords. Here’s what you need to know.from the Specops Software research team is as worrying as it is new. Published Jan. 21, the report is an analysis of more than a billion passwords that have been stolen by malware.
In total, 1,089,342,532 stolen passwords captured over a 12-month period were analyzed for this report. Across 2024, the Specops threat intelligence team collected data on the theft of credentials by malware, data that was then meticulously analyzed to provide insight into how users are choosing and abusing passwords. “By examining real-world password data and analyzing the techniques used by attackers,” the researchers said, “we hope to provide you with actionable insights and recommendations to enhance your security protocols and protect against the threat of malware-stolen credentials.
The Specops researchers said that, of the more than a billion compromised passwords analyzed, a staggering 230 million of them actually met the standard complexity requirements found in numerous organizations and used by many consumers a result. If proof is needed that these requirements are past their sell-by date, this is it. A password with over eight characters, including a capital, a numeric, a special character and so on, is not fit for purpose.
“Hackers favor malware-stolen credentials as they’re easy to obtain, use, and sell,” the researchers said, with the most commonly used information-stealing malware found to be Redline, Vidar and Raccoon Stealer. The report itself goes into more depth on this and is well worth a read. The real takeaway from the analysis, in my never humble opinion, is that malware is one of the main reasons that reusing your passwords is so dangerous.
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