- Hacker Adkka72424 claims leak of 6.8 billion unique email addresses
- Cybernews verified approximately 3 billion usable emails, archive size 150 GB
- Massive leak poses phishing and BEC risks via tailored social engineering attacks
A hacker claims to have obtained and leaked 6.8 billion unique email addresses – and while these claims are currently unverified, early reports indicate that at least half of these emails are real.
Researchers at Cybernews recently discovered a new post on a popular data leak forum created by a hacker under the pseudonym Adkka72424, claiming to have obtained 6.8 billion unique email addresses through different channels, some of which were obtained illegally.
“Two years ago, I obtained over 3.3 billion unique email addresses. After a long break, I started again and spent about 2 months extracting emails from various combos, ULP collections, logs and databases and extracted 6,839,584,670 unique email addresses,” the post read.
At least half is useful
We don’t know if the database is offered for free or sold, but Cybernews says the archive weighs 150 GB. Analyzing the sample, they said that after removing unusable emails, duplicates and invalid addresses, some three billion could be useful.
This would still place it among the biggest email leaks of all time and a treasure trove for all hackers engaging in phishing and business email compromise.
“Based on comments on the forum thread, most users are excited to use the data to check if other leaks contain recent new data, by comparing entries from this release. » Cybernews said.
“This allows bad actors to save time by trying to exploit only recently discovered leaked accounts. »
Many criminals, especially those who practice social engineering, profile their victims before attacking. They would search for their workplace, position, working hours, salary, and most importantly, contact details. By combining all of these elements and creating a detailed profile, they are able to create tailored and highly effective phishing emails that can lead to credential leaks and fraudulent wire transfers.
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