SECURITY - Gmail Account Passwords Released

[RedPath88]

Ok so this may or may not be legitimate, but I figured it was best to post up a warning just in case.

http://preview.msn.com/en-us/news/other/5-million-gmail-passwords-published-but-dont-panic/ar-BB32qqQ

5 million Gmail passwords published, but don't panic

Engadget

Jon Fingas

6 hrs ago

You might need to change your email password in the very near future. A member at a Russian Bitcoin forum has posted almost 5 million Gmail passwords, around 60 percent of which are reportedly still working. It's not clear how the poster managed to scoop up all this account info, but Google tells Cnews that it comes from a long stretch of hacking and phishing attempts that stole data from individual users. Gmail's servers weren't breached, the search giant says, and much of what's there is old. That's somewhat comforting, but you may want to check if your account is one of the unfortunate targets -- you don't want to give thieves easy access to your most sensitive info.

Source: Btcsec

That article links to a Russian site/forum called BitCoin Security
5 million Gmail passwords published, but don't panic

In the first post you will find a link to download a file called google_5000000.7z
This is a 28.7MB compressed file that contains the text document "google_5000000.txt" that, once extracted is 103MB.

The user who posted it compiled a list of all the released accounts (email addresses) that were published, minus the passwords that were released with them.

You can download, extract and open that file then run a search to see if your account(s) are on the list. If so change your password(s) or just change them now to be safe.

It can be opened in a utility that every Windows machine has, Notepad and use the CTRL F command to open a search window. Depending on your machine it may take a while, so be patient, after all it is 102690 printed pages!


I have already done it and came up clean on my accounts. And by the article, you should be safe if your a smart surfer, but things happen so...


Although I did this, understand that if you choose too then you are visiting the site and downloading the file at your own risk.

[ferrariowner123]

Yeah!!! Not on the list!!

 

-Kyle

[Kafike]

Supposedly they were old passwords for the accounts. Good idea to change your password though

[RedPath88]

Well yes, old passwords "if" the users regularly (or ever) change their passwords... a lot of people do not

 

But yes, a good reminder to do so