Nearly five million usernames and passwords of Google accounts have been hacked and published on a Russian Bitcoin Security online forum.
A Bitcoin user said that over 60% of the leaked login details are active and can be accessed successfully, a Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Of the five million details, 4.93 million usernames and passwords belong to English, Russian and Spanish account holders. The leaked Gmail database also has thousands of Yandex addresses and the login details can be used to handle all other Google services.
Russian Google office representative Svetlana Anurova requested the Google account users to opt for stronger passwords and make use of security options present in the Google accounts for its protection.
"Experts now understand what happened in this case. Users should select strong passwords and be sure to use a two-step authentication," Anurova told a Russian Technology news source CNews.
Earlier, over 4.66 million Mail.ru account details and 1.26 million Yandex account passwords were also published on the Bitcoin forum. These account login details were reportedly hacked via phishing and Trojan viruses and most of them were inactive.
The news pertaining leakages of online email details would have apparently worried users about the safety of their own login details. A tool isleaked.com has been devised to verify if one's Gmail login details have been leaked or not. The tool is also said to have an option for the users to secure their email username and password.
