Yesterday a Russian hacker claimed to have hacked at least five million Gmail accounts along with the passwords. Thing got worse when he ruthlessly posted the entire dump of data in a text file online, exposing the passwords of five million Gmail users.
This was a huge leak and alarmingly we found instances of Pakistani internet users’ IDs present in the dump as well. This is probably why the leak is very serious and that every Gmail user – from around the globe – should be concerned about the security of his/her account.
Experts have recommended every Gmail user to immediately change their passwords, or even better – rather a must do thing – enable two step verification for your Gmail Accounts.
With two step verification enabled, users can’t log-in to their Google accounts without inputting a code that is received on their verified phone numbers. Complete process for enabling two-step verification for Google accounts is explained here.
Google said that this data wasn’t leaked through Google servers, instead the list contained information from third-party leaks and smaller hacks of non-Google websites. But since users tend to use same password for almost every website, there are chances that your leaked/hacked password might have matched with your Gmail accounts’ password.
Google has confirmed that at least 2 percent email IDs present in the leaked list from yesterday might be correct and current passwords of the accounts. Google said that it has protected the affected accounts and have required those users to reset their passwords.
