If you have a Gmail account, you may want to consider changing your password like yesterday. Apparently the user info was dumped onto a Russian Bitcoin forum and Google is advising everyone to change their passwords immediately... Just another example why Google sucks!
I am no fan of Google, but it looks like EVERY website/company/database is going to be hacked. No information that you have in electronic format will not be hacked at some point in the future.
It's time for them all to start implementing a fingerprint or eye recognition software for anything that now involves passwords. Problem solved.
I'm a big google fan - they save me hundreds every year. Down here in NZ our major ISP uses yahoo mail and they've been breached so many times I've stopped counting. Google was a target once? I'll get over it.
Well it is an old breach and the hack was not on Gmail servers, in fact the source of the leak is some third party website. Some people, on other forums, are saying that the password they see is a very old password which they had used some years back. So looks like it is old data and has been leaked now. Anyways it is time to change the password and also enable 2 factor authentication to be on the safer side.
Yeap the 5 million may be from third parties or from the victims' computers, I doubt that Gmail itself was compromised
The problem is that fingerprints/eye patterns, etc., are just more data that can be also be hacked, eventually.
Anyways the latest on this episode is that in fact it was not a leak from Gmail account, but emails / leaks sourced from third party sites or phishing sites and dumped. Read through the following link: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2606112/no-gmail-password-wasnt-hacked-itbwcw.html But any day enabling 2 factor authentication is being wise.
There's really only one way to completely stop hacking where passwords and personal information are concerned: microchip implants. Unfortunately, that sounds so much like the Biblical "mark of the beast" scenario many Christians live in fear of, there would be major obstacles to implementing such a system.
I don't think Google was compromised. Passwords for some accounts (well... as lot of accounts) were obtained by phishing. BTW, here is a site where you can check if you account was affected - www.gmailleak.com
I am not sure that would stop hacking. The hackers in this situation would simply have to "swipe" your info as you pass by their device and then copy it on to a new chip. Much like they do with ATM cards and fake swiping components in bank machines. Or, they could get your "signature" file from one of the merchants who needs to recognize you and duplicate that.
That's reassuring, but I actually read an article months ago about a new type of RFID chip designed to prevent exactly this sort of thing. I can't remember specifically how it worked, but I do remember it saying something about the chip being encoded with the DNA of the owner and that without this combination it wouldn't work.
Which opens up a whole new can of worms about how to manage accounts when the person has died or become incapacitated for some reason.