A hacker posted nearly 10 billion passwords online- likely the biggest leak ever

A file containing almost 10 billion passwords was reportedly posted on an online hacking forum. This could be the largest such compilation of leaked passwords ever and the file contains passwords compromised in both recent and old data breaches all over the world, Semafor reported. Owing to this, there could be an increased chance of credential stuffing attacks in which one compromised password used for a user’s account can be reused by a hacker to break into another account.

The report claimed that not all the passwords in the file appeared to be new which means that they have been leaked previously and this increases the chance of “credential stuffing.” As per the practice, a bad actor can take a user’s known password and try to reuse it to break into other accounts in their name, Cybernews, a cybersecurity-focused news outlet, explained.