5 million hacked GMail passwords, addresses dumped online

Published September 11, 2014 10:46am

At least five million addresses and passwords of Google's popular email service Gmail have been leaked online, a tech site reported this week.

PC World said the archive containing the Gmail data was posted on an online forum Tuesday, though the data is likely old and stemmed from past data breaches.

It quoted Peter Kruse, chief technology officer of Danish security firm CSIS Security Group, as saying they cannot confirm for now that it is indeed as much as 60 percent, "but a great amount of the leaked data is legitimate."

“We believe the data doesn’t originate from Google directly. Instead it’s likely it comes from various sources that have been compromised,” Kruse said via email.

The report said a user with the alias “tvskit” posted the archive file on a Bitcoin security forum, and claimed more than 60 percent of the credentials there are valid.

But an analysis by CSIS researchers showed the data was up to three years old.

For its part, a Google representative said there is no evidence Google's systems have been compromised.

"(B)ut whenever we become aware that an account has been compromised, we take steps to help our users secure their accounts,” the representative said.

Still, PC World advised Gmail users to change their passwords just to make sure. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News

Tags: google, gmail, cybersecurity, passwords