Who’s affected by the Collection #1 Data Breach? The real question should be “who’s not affected?” The Collection #1 folder features 2.7 billion rows of passwords and email addresses, creating more than 1 billion unique combinations. Who’s Affected by the Collection #1 Data Breach? That makes the origin of this breach hard to pinpoint. Instead, the Collection #1 folder contains information leaked a variety of databases, so it’s all from different data breaches. Unlike with most data breaches, they didn’t all come from the same site. So where did all the passwords and email addresses come from? That’s sort of the problem. The folder quickly appeared on a hacking forum and is claimed to contain contents of upwards of 2,000 leaked databases with unprotected email addresses and passwords.
Why so big? That’s because it was chock full of email addresses and passwords. Troy noticed a folder called Collection #1 on cloud service provider MEGA containing more than 12,000 files, weighing it at more than 87 gigabytes.
The Collection #1 data breach may have gone unnoticed for a while if it weren’t for Troy Hunt, a security researcher who also created and maintains Have I Been Pwned-a site that provides a way to know if your email or password is impacted by a breach. Here’s how the hack happened, how it was discovered, and what you can do. This is no joke, so please don’t not take this breach, and the dangers it might present for you, seriously. I tested multiple email addresses for a few hours on Friday evening, and found many emails of friends, co-workers, and family members affected. And know that even if you don’t use the same password across multiple sites, that doesn’t mean you are safe. If you use the same password across multiple accounts, this is your wake up call to change that behavior stat. The breach is massive and it likely not only affects you, but chances are good it impacts your company as well. The Collection #1 data breach is no ordinary breach, impacting some 772,904,991 email addresses and more than 21 million unique passwords, and it’s being called “the mother of all security breaches” with good reason.ĭoes the Collection #1 Data Breach Affect Me?ĭoes the Collection #1 data breach affect you? Short answer, probably so. So, what’s new, right? Security breaches most often occur because of a lack of awareness around security and, to be honest, because most of us are fairly lazy when it comes to password security. If you’ve not yet heard, there’s been yet another data breach.