In what is being seen as one of the biggest hacks on the web ever, a gang of hackers from Russia have reportedly stolen 1.2 billion usernames and passwords from more than 420,000 websites around the globe.
A report on Trak says that although the hackers haven’t sold the information as yet, they have been using the usernames and passwords for spamming social media of the owners.
The details on hacking was discovered by a Milwaukee based security & risk management company named Hold Security, which has a released a blog post on the same.
The gang of Russian hackers has allegedly used SQL Injection method for getting access to the usernames and passwords.
The report further says that close to 4.5 billion records are with the hackers, which includes half billion email addresses and passwords.
Close to 420,000 websites are known to be in under the threat.
Citing non-disclosure agreements with the concerned websites, Hold Security didn’t reveal the names but mentioned there are both small and large websites around the world.
The heist was further established by New York Times that has used security experts to analyze the condition, and the confirmations on the same have come.
Also, many of the large websites are already known to the hack and have been updating their systems.
Given that hackers have targeted the websites that come with SQL protection, website owners should check on SQL Injections at the earliest.
Users should change their passwords as early as possible with new ones having numbers and characters, and must have separate passwords for website and emails.