Cyber experts have issued an urgent warning for people to update their passwords after a hacker uploaded billions of login details online.

The massive leak, dubbed RockYou2024, was posted, containing an astonishing 10 billion passwords compiled from old and new data breaches.

Researchers who exposed the leak warned that the information could enable hackers to target systems lacking stringent security measures.

These attacks include online services, offline devices, online cameras, and industrial hardware which could compromise companies.

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Data released on password leak

Additionally, this breach could trigger a surge in data breaches, financial fraud, and identity theft. The passwords were collected from over 4,000 databases over the past two decades.

Cyber researchers from Cyber News have identified the hacker as someone using the alias ObamaCare. This individual had used 8.4 billion passwords from an earlier crime forum released in 2021.

“Xmas came early this year,” ObamaCare wrote on the forum, boasting about the new RockYou2024 password list with over 9.9 billion passwords.

The hacker also mentioned using a high-end Nvidia graphics card to crack old passwords, adding new, real user passwords to the list.

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Cyber Report: Passwords posted online

The leak was released in a 45.6-gigabyte .zip archive, containing records from sites like X (formerly Twitter), AdultFriendFinder, MyFitnessPal, LinkedIn, and Adobe.

The most affected brands are Chinese companies Tencent, with 1.5 billion compromised accounts, and Weibo, with 504 million.

Researchers emphasized that the RockYou2024 leak consists of real-world passwords, significantly increasing the risk of credential-stuffing attacks.

In such attacks, hackers use a password from one breach to access unrelated services, like using an X account password to try accessing other social media accounts.

As a precaution, users should immediately reset leaked passwords, choose strong, unique combinations for each account, and enable multi-factor authentication for additional security.

According to cyber experts, there is no excuse not to use unique passwords for every account, as data breaches continue to grow.

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