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Time to rethink security!

So, its Google this time. A database of almost 5 million Google accounts have been leaked on Russian cyber security site “Forum.btcsec.com“. The username and password list was published on Tuesday in a Bitcoin security forum. Forum administrators have immediately deletedthe file that was later updated with only username files only.

Insights:

Recently we have seen some leaks in Russian services – Yandex and Mail.ru. Official statements by both the companies were these were suspended accounts because of behavior. Their own database is not compromised. Hackers may have used some harvesting technique via phishing or any other social engineering to get the list.

There is no confirmation of compromise on Google accounts, nor any details that it followed the previous leaks mechanism. However some Russian bloggers are already speaking out about trusting an “American Company”.

After confirmation from many of the users whose username and passwords are in the list, they say the password which has been shown here is of very first few passwords that they have used for Google and is not the current one. So it is a question mark how these old passwords list of Google is in hands of hackers.

A security vendor McAfee made a blog post in December 2013reporting on number of Android applications, which were secretly capturing confidential information of the users such Google account names, IMEI numbers etc.

After affects:

These are google accounts which are used for number of services like Gmail, Google Apps , Google AdWords ,Google+ and the many other services provided by Google let alone Google Play – the Android app and video marketplace.

IS YOUR GMAIL ACCOUNT COMPROMISED?

If you want to check whether your account is in the list of blessed(Hacked) users or not, you can head here and input your email address.

WARNING !!!

Don’t enter combination of Username and Password on any site for checking if you are in the list of blessed (Hacked) accounts or not.

How to Secure yourself :

Following are some of the recommendations from our security experts:
1. Users are recommended to change their Google password immediately. whether your name is in the list or not.

2. Users should use different passwords for different accounts.

3. Users should enable two factors authentication for Google account.

4. Users should check the privacy and settings for applications they are using in mobile. We have recently published some guidelines for users to keep them self protected.