Security expert Pavel Myasoedov recommends changing passwords following the unprecedented data leak.
Cybersecurity expert Pavel Myasoedov advises that the primary step to protecting digital data from the largest leak in history is to change passwords. He also suggested refraining from using the compromised services for a while, as vulnerabilities might still exist.
First and foremost, everyone with any account, including on services like Gmail, should urgently change their passwords… Given that this affected multiple major players simultaneously, the situation is complex, and we cannot expect immediate closure of all vulnerabilities. This means we might remain under heightened risk for some period.
He deemed the suggestion to temporarily cease using affected services and download all data from them as less practical to implement. He added that Russia would have been more severely impacted if its digital landscape still relied heavily on foreign products, as was the case previously.
What we are seeing from this news is an unprecedented event, truly unprecedented in the original sense of the word; something like this has not occurred before. This is a massive leak, and I believe it will be one of the main news stories in the coming days.
He emphasized that the leaked data is entirely new, not merely a compilation of previous breaches. He explained that addressing the leak quickly will be challenging because the exact point and stage of the compromise are unclear.
Furthermore, this leak involves several of the world`s largest IT companies, who inherently place security as a top priority. If such a leak happens there, we can state with 90 percent certainty that it is a targeted attack by professional hackers.
It was previously reported that 16 billion URLs, logins, and passwords for various digital services, including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Telegram, have appeared online. Around 30 distinct datasets were discovered, each containing anywhere from tens of millions to billions of data records.
