It might be time to change some of your passwords — again. But if you've used a Gmail password that's unique from other accounts, you might not have to worry.
A list of almost 5 million combinations of Gmail addresses and passwords was posted online on Tuesday. But the passwords seem to be old, and they don't appear to actually belong to Gmail accounts. Instead, it seems that many of the passwords were taken from websites where users used their Gmail addresses to register, according to some of the leak's victims as well as security experts.
See also: The 25 Worst Passwords of 2013
For example, someone might have signed up for a website with the username "myaddress@gmail.com" and the password "mypassword." The list exposed this week makes it look like "mypassword" is the password for the Gmail account itself, but the user's actual Gmail password might be totally different.
The list was posted on a Russian Bitcoin forum on Tuesday evening, and local media started reporting on it on Wednesday.
We can't confirm the authenticity of all the email addresses on the list, but a Mashable employee, Evan Engel, saw that his old Gmail password, which he hasn't used in years, is part of the leak.
Source : mashable.com
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