Over the past few days, rumors have been circulating about a massive MySpace data breach. Initial reports suggested that 427 million usernames and passwords had been obtained by a hacker going by the name of “Peace”. The name should sound familiar. The Russian hacker is the same individual who recently listed 117 million LinkedIn login credentials for sale on an illegal darknet marketplace. The hacker was also allegedly responsible for the 65 million-record data breach at Tumblr.
360 Million Login Credentials Stolen in MySpace Data Breach
Yesterday, Time Inc., confirmed that login credentials had been listed for sale online and that a MySpace data breach had occurred, although it would appear that the stolen data was obtained some time ago. The login credentials are for the old MySpace platform and date to before June 11, 2013. While Time Inc., did not confirm exactly how many login names and passwords had been stolen, Time confirmed that the figure of 360 million that had been reported in the press in the last couple of days was probably accurate.
Usernames, passwords, email addresses, and secondary passwords are reportedly being offered for sale. Out of the 360 million logins, Leakedsourrce.com suggests that 111,341,258 of the stolen records include a username and a password, and 68,493,651 records had a secondary password compromised. Not all of those stolen records also included a primary password.
Since 2013, data security has improved considerably and many companies have enforced the use of numerals, capital letters, and symbols when creating passwords. The stolen data reportedly includes only a small percentage of accounts with a capital letter in the password. This makes the passwords much easier to crack. The algorithm used to encrypt the passwords was also weak.
The login credentials from the MySpace data breach are reportedly being offered for sale for 5 Bitcoin – approximately $2,800.
All old users of the MySpace platform, and current users who joined the website before June 11, 2013 are potentially at risk. MySpace has responded to the breach by resetting all passwords on accounts created before June 11, 2013. When these users visit MySpace again they will be required to authenticate their account and supply a new password.
Additional security measures have been employed to identify suspicious account activity and the data theft is now being investigated. It would appear that no one at MySpace was aware that its database had been breached until the data were offered for sale just before the Memorial Day weekend.
MySpace Breach Shows Why It is Important Never to Reuse or Recycle Passwords
Since the data breach appears to have occurred some time ago, it is probable that many users will have changed their passwords on the site long ago, but the data could still be used to attack past and current users. All too often passwords are recycled and used for other online accounts, and many individuals use the same passwords for different platforms or rarely (or never) change them.
The MySpace data breach shows why it is important to use a different password for each online account and to regularly change passwords on all platforms. In the event of a breach of login credentials, users will only have to secure one account. If there is a possibility that only passwords are still in use on other platforms, MySpace account holders should update their passwords as soon as possible.
Hackers have access to tools that can check to see if account login and password combos have been used on other websites.
