A compilation of nearly 10 billion leaked passwords has surfaced online. Hackers can use this data to break into all kinds of accounts.

A hacker has posted a huge text file containing around 9.94 billion passwords online. The file, whose name appears to contain mainly a compilation of previously leaked data, including data from previously published data RockYou2021File with 8.4 billion passwords.

The new file is called RockYou2024.txt and was discovered by Cybernews. The database contains more passwords than people worldwide use the Internet. The database contains data from both old and newer hacks.

Hackers use such databases for Credential stuffing-attacks. They work with known passwords in the hope of being able to log in with a targeted account. Since many passwords are still reused for different services, this is a successful technique. The huge database gives hackers the ammunition to carry out such attacks in a very targeted manner.

Password hygiene

The dataset is only valuable to criminals because users have poor password hygiene. After all, the database contains many previously stolen passwords, but it is not related to a new hack of an organization. The best protection against the attacks that RockYou2024 enables is to choose long and, above all, unique passwords for each individual account. A password manager can help you with this.

If you read in the news that a service you use has been hacked, change your password and make sure you don’t use it anywhere else. MFA also ensures that an attacker can’t use your password to break into your account.