database

Reports that hackers have got their hands on 10 billion passwords have been slightly overblown. The file includes passwords up to 20 years old and many may never have been used at all. The "leak" involves an online post of a text file dubbed ... "RockYou 2024" which is said to contain 9,948,575,739 unique passwords, all stored in plain text. It appears to be an update from a similar file published in 2021, with "only" 1.5 billion of the passwords added since that time. Cybernews estimates it contains passwords compiled from around 4,000 databases over the past 20 years. (Source: cybernews.com ) ... (view more)

Google says Chrome will now warn users about risky sites using real-time information. The improvements won't compromise user privacy. Chrome already offers a feature called Safe Browsing. The default option, "standard protection," kicks in when ... users are about to visit a site, download a file or install an extension. The feature compares the target URL (website address) against a database of known and suspected security risks and warns the user of a match. The optional "enhanced protection" option will also actively check the target site for any signs that it may be compromised, threaten ... (view more)

A leak of around 26 billion user records has been labeled "the mother of all breaches." It's a major reminder of the downsides of reusing the same passwords on multiple sites. The collection of records is not a single stolen database. Instead, it ... appears to be a massive compilation of databases that have either been leaked before or sold on the black market. The database was spotted online by security researchers, likely a sign that whoever compiled it screwed up somewhere by mistakenly making it accessible. The researchers noted the database was extremely well indexed and organized. The ... (view more)

A popular malware-fighting tool left users unable to access Google and YouTube after a blunder. It's the second time Google has been hit by false positives in the past few weeks. This problem affected Malwarebytes, one of the more popular security ... tools other than those built in to operating systems. Specifically, the problem was with the premium version of Malwarebytes that integrates with web browsers, checks links the user might visit, and blocks the link if it points to a domain believed to pose a security risk. Such risks can include look-alike sites used for phishing scams to try to ... (view more)

A "smart" security camera maker has suffered a significant data breach. No video footage was leaked, but email addresses and details of some home gadgets were exposed. Manufacture Wyze hasn't revealed full details of how the breach happened, but ... denied that the leak was due to using cloud computing in China. According to Wyze, the exposed data covered 2.4 million customers and included "customer emails along with camera nicknames, WiFi SSIDs, Wyze device information, body metrics for a small number of product beta testers, and limited tokens associated with Alexa integrations. ... (view more)

The word "hacked" is worth 16 points in Scrabble. It's also what appears to have happened to a database of 218 million users of the popular online game "Words With Friends." A few weeks ago game creators Zynga said it "recently discovered that ... certain player account information may have been illegally accessed by outside hackers." It didn't give any detail on numbers, but went on to say that account login information may have been accessed. (Source: zynga.com ) Now a hacker has come forth and is attempting to sell the details of 620 million Zynga game accounts, of which 218 million ... (view more)

Chrome may soon warn users if their passwords have been compromised. It works by checking inputted passwords against those exposed in public data breaches. The feature is already available for Chrome from an official Google extension known as ... Password Checkup, but users need to actively install this extension to use it. Web browser Mozilla Firefox already has a similar feature built-in. Now a similar feature named "password leak detection" has been spotted in the code of Chrome Canary. That's a version of Chrome that includes test features planned for release in the main Chrome edition in a ... (view more)

An app designed to make it easier to get on public WiFi has accidentally exposed more than two million WiFi passwords. It appears to be a case of terrible design, rather than pure malice by the app designers. The app is called "WiFi Finder - connect ... to hotspots" and is listed on the Google Play store as having more than 100,000 downloads. In theory the app is part of a project to make using WiFi on the move more convenient. It's designed to be a massive database to which users can add public WiFi networks and the relevant passwords. For example, visitors to a coffee store could add the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Philip S. writes: " Dear Dennis, We are running Windows 10 on our office machine which has Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) installed. On that machine we use Microsoft SQL Server Manager to enter in data into our databases, though other ... machines can access the Microsoft SQL databases through the network using MS Access DSN files. A few years ago we hired someone to set up our databases; however, we are now running out of space on the C drive as the databases have grown significantly in size. We would like to move the MS SQL databases and then set up a RAID to make the data redundant ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Nathan J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently received an email stating that hackers have hacked my phone. As proof of their hack, they gave me the last 2 digits of my phone number. They claim to have uploaded spying software on my ... phone and have supposedly 'caught me' visiting raunchy websites. To keep this quiet, they are demanding bitcoin payment of $800 USD. How can they hack my phone like this? Can they hack my PC too? Should I be worried? " My response: This is yet another version of the same scam that is currently going around the Internet. Related: How to Fix: Hackers ... (view more)