About 48 million Gmail accounts compromised in criminal database

Data from approximately 48 million Gmail accounts, including logins and passwords, were exposed in a criminal database, reports Metro.

The database contained a total of 149 million compromised records, including 17 million Facebook accounts, 6.5 million Instagram accounts, and 4 million Yahoo login-password pairs.

Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered the database, which had been publicly accessible for a month, and was able to remove it.

“The publicly exposed database was not password-protected or encrypted. I saw thousands of files that included emails, usernames, passwords, and the URL links to the login or authorization for the accounts,” Fowler explained.

It is believed that the database included information from previous data breaches, meaning not all accounts were compromised for the first time.

By Vugar Khalilov