New Delhi . The login credentials (usernames and passwords) of more than 14.9 crore users of major internet companies like Gmail, Instagram, Facebook and Netflix have reportedly been leaked. This claim has been made in a report published by ‘ExpressVPN’ and cyber security researcher Jeremiah Fowler.
According to the report, this publicly exposed data includes 4.8 crore accounts of Gmail, 40 lakh of Yahoo, 1.7 crore of Facebook, 65 lakh of Instagram and 34 lakh of Netflix. Apart from this, it is said that information of 15 lakh accounts of Outlook has also been leaked.
There is currently no response to the emails sent to the companies.
Fowler said in the report that this publicly available database was not password protected or encrypted. It contained a total of 14.94 crore unique logins and passwords, the total size of which is 96 GB. The samples were examined and thousands of such files were found which contained emails, usernames, passwords and login URL links of accounts. Emails sent to the major companies named in this report have not received any response at present.
Fowler said this database was publicly available, making it possible for anyone who searched for it to access the credentials of millions of people.

“The exposed records included usernames and passwords collected from victims around the world, covering all types of possible accounts, from commonly used online services,” he said.

According to the cybersecurity researcher’s claims, information from financial services accounts, crypto wallets or trading accounts as well as banking and credit card logins were found in the limited sample of records reviewed. A serious concern raised by the cyber researcher was that the leaked data also included credentials associated with ‘dot.gov’ domains (government emails) of many countries of the world.

Do these things for protection
Fowler says that just changing the password cannot protect you from this malware. They say that if your device has malware then any new password you type can also be stolen. To avoid this, you can follow the steps given below.

Perform a full scan of your device with an antivirus or security app

Be careful of any fake link or offer.

Use a password manager.

Turn on two-step verification.

Do not keep the same password in multiple places