A massive data breach has resulted in roughly two million passwords being stolen from across the web. The attack came in the form of keylogging malware which has found its way onto the computers of unwitting victims, capturing log-in credentials and sending the username/password combo back to a server run by the hackers.
According to Trustwave, the cybersecurity firm which uncovered this breach, the virus compromised accounts from more than 93,000 websites. Facebook was the hardest hit with over 318,000 stolen credentials, followed by Yahoo with nearly 60,000 and Google (the company behind Gmail, Youtube and many other popular services) with over 70,000 affected users. 22,000 Twitter users were also hit, as well as 8,000 LinkedIn profiles and 8,000 ADP accounts. ADP specializes in human resources software, which means the company could see series financial ramifications as a result of this attack.
"We don't have evidence they logged into these accounts, but they probably did," said John Miller, a security research manager at Trustwave. "They might be able to cut checks, modify people's [ADP] payments," he added.
Trustwave reports that both a proxy server and the Command-and-Control server behind the attacks are located in the Netherlands, but targeted accounts seem to span much of the globe—as many as 102 countries may have been impacted. The revelation comes a little over a week after a Dutch publication revealed that the NSA had infected 50,000 computer networks with spyware.
The cybersecurity firm reported its findings to the affected companies and published the discovery on Tuesday, December 3rd. It is recommending that everyone update their antivirus software and download the newest patches for Java, Adobe, and any Internet browsers on their computers.
[Source: Trustwave]