Home Internet, Software & Apps 26 billion records leak in ‘Mother Of All Breaches’, the largest data leak in history: check if your data is safe

26 billion records leak in ‘Mother Of All Breaches’, the largest data leak in history: check if your data is safe

By G.S Vasan -

Published On: January 24, 2024

Highlights

Mother Of All Breaches consists of 12TB of leaked data.
There are data from popular online platforms and even government bodies are affected.
You can find here tools to check if your data is part of the leak.

26 billion records from companies like X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Telegram, Adobe, etc have leaked online. The massive data leak has been dubbed the "Mother Of All Breaches" and contains 12 terabytes of data. However, this compilation consists of many old leaked data and some fresh data. Here are ways to check if your email IDs or phone numbers have been compromised.

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Mother of all breaches details

The leak was discovered by researchers from Security Discovery and Cybernews. As already mentioned, this consists of 12TB of data. It has been named the "Mother Of All Breaches" or MOAB. As per Forbes, this is likely "the biggest found to date".
There are 26 billion records from various companies and various leaks over time filed in over 3,800 folders. Each of these folders consists of different data breaches.

The data is leaked from companies like X (Twitter; 281M), LinkedIn (251M), Telegram (41M), Adobe (153M), Canva (143M), Deezer (258M), Dropbox (69M), AdultFriendFinder (220M), Daily Motion (86M), MySpace (360M), VK (101M), Tencent, and Weibo (504M). Tencent QQ with 1.4 billion records is the most affected.
Even data from government institutions based in the US, Germany, Philippines, Brazil, and Turkey are part of the leak.
However, as we said before, they all don't belong to a single leak source. After tallying with the data they have, the researchers have found the leak consists of several past leaked data and some new, never-published-before data. The latter is concerning.
Bad actors could use this leaked compilation for cyber attacks like phishing, hacking, and identity theft.

Jake Moore, cybersecurity advisor at ESET says, "We should never underestimate what cybercriminals can achieve with such limited information. Victims need to be aware of the consequences of stolen passwords and make the necessary security updates in response".

How to check if your data has leaked

Cybernews itself has a tool called "Personal Data Leak Check". You can enter your email ID or mobile number to see if it has been affected by this leak. You can also check data leaks in your region. For instance, per the site, in India, 236,358 accounts have been leaked. It tells you the affected platforms sorted by both recency and size.

Alternatively, you can also go to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and see if your email ID has been in a leak.
As a general practice, use strong passwords, use password managers, enable two-factor authentication, and be cautious of sketchy emails and messages.

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