Millions of stolen email credentials found in Russia’s hacking underground

Millions of hacked emails usernames and passwords have been discovered in Russia’s criminal underground.

Of 272.3 million stolen accounts, the majority of them were from Mail.ru, Russia’s most popular email service, with some coming from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft email users.

Today, Reuters reported that the first discovery, which came after Hold Security researchers discovered a young Russian hacker bragging on a forum that he was ready to distribute over 1 billion stolen email accounts.

Alex Holden, founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security, says that after eliminating the duplicates the stash contained approximately 57 million Mail.ru accounts. It’s important to note that Mail.ru claimed to have 64 million monthly active users at the end of last year.

Furthermore, tens of millions of credentials for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft accounts were also discovered.

According to Reuters, this is one of the largest uncovering of online credentials since the cyberattacks on major U.S. banks and retailers two years ago.

[source]Reuters[/source]