2 Million Stolen Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo Passwords Found on Server in Netherlands

• By Ginger Hill
• Dec 04, 2013

Hey “Facebookers,” “Google-ites,” “Tweeters” and “Yahoo-ers”! Does your account(s) represent one or some of the nearly two million social media accounts that were hacked over the past month?

According to a report that was released this week, this massive data breach was the result of keylogging software that was maliciously installed on an untold number of computers around the world. This virus has been capturing login credentials from more than 93,000 websites since October 21, 2013 and sending usernames and passwords to a Pony Bot server that was controlled by the hackers.

Researchers did track the hackers’ server, which took them to the Netherlands, but not before 318,000 Facebook accounts, 70,000 Google accounts, 22,000 Twitter accounts and 60,000 Yahoo accounts, among others, were breached.

And, to make matters worse, these weren’t amateur hackers! They knew enough to route the hacked data through a proxy server, making it impossible to track down infected computers. In fact, the hackers made it look as if there were 1,049,879 victims only in the Netherlands, even though the victimization is global.

Facebook allegedly told CNN Money that they have reset the passwords for all their compromised users; however, Google declined to comment while Yahoo did not provide a response.

Worried that your computer might be infected? One of the best things you can do is update your antivirus software and download the latest patches for all Internet browsers, Adobe and Java.

And, perhaps most importantly, change all your social media accounts’ passwords to a strong password that incorporates numbers, letters and special symbols in unlikely combinations, resisting the urge to use the same password for multiple accounts.

Photo courtesy of: Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com