Scary: Ring Of Criminals Have Access To More Than A Billion Internet Passwords

A ring of Russian criminals has acquired
1.2 billion username and password
combinations, as well as more than 500
million email addresses, the New
York Times reports, amassing the
largest known collection of stolen
Internet credentials.
Cybersecurity firm Hold Security
discovered that the group gathered
confidential material from 420,000
websites, including household names
and small Internet sites,
the Times reports. The crime ring, based
in a small city in south central Russia,
hacked websites inside Russia as well
as major Fortune 500 companies
abroad.
"[The] hackers did not just target U.S.
companies, they targeted any website
they could get, ranging from Fortune
500 companies to very small websites,"
Alex Holden, the chief information
security officer of Hold Security told
the Times. "And most of these sites are
still vulnerable."
The criminals have been using the stolen
information to send spam on social
networks like Twitter, collecting fees for
their work. However, it has yet to sell
many of the records on the potentially
lucrative black market.
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