Cybersecurity researchers have reportedly uncovered what is likely the biggest data breach in history, affecting billions of people who use Apple, Facebook, Google and other services.
Since the beginning of the year, researchers at Cybernews have been thumbing through “supermassive datasets” that contain at least 16 billion records of login information for social media, VPNs, developer portals, corporate platforms and much more.
The researchers say “no stone was left unturned.”
“This is not just a leak – it’s a blueprint for mass exploitation. With over 16 billion login records exposed, cybercriminals now have unprecedented access to personal credentials that can be used for account takeover, identity theft, and highly targeted phishing.
What’s especially concerning is the structure and recency of these datasets – these aren’t just old breaches being recycled. This is fresh, weaponizable intelligence at scale.”
The experts say that some of the datasets were labeled with vague names like “logins” or “credentials,” not giving much of a hint as to what was inside the files.
However, other datasets were more specific with their labeling.
According to the researchers, one dataset’s name suggested it was linked to the Russian Federation and had over 455 million records inside. Another was named after Telegram, the encrypted messaging app.
“The inclusion of both old and recent infostealer logs – often with tokens, cookies, and metadata – makes this data particularly dangerous for organizations lacking multi-factor authentication or credential hygiene practices,”
Bob Diachenko, a cybersecurity researcher and a contributor to Cybernews, is responsible for the discovery.
Diachenko clarified that there was “no centralized data breach” of the aforementioned tech companies. Rather, the information was likely extracted using infostealers and then leaked onto the dark web.
Researcher Aras Nazarovas said that the discovery might be evidence that cybercriminals have abandoned their old techniques of stealing data, and moving onto more sophisticated methods.
“The increased number of exposed infostealer datasets in the form of centralized, traditional databases, like the ones found by the Cybernews research team, may be a sign, that cybercriminals are actively shifting from previously popular alternatives such as Telegram groups, which were previously the go-to place for obtaining data collected by infostealer malware.”
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