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Security researchers have warned that approximately 183 million email login credentials, including a significant number tied to Gmail accounts, were exposed in a massive credential-dump.
The leak appears to have resulted not from a direct breach of Gmail or Google LLC’s systems, but rather from malware-infected devices. These devices collected usernames and passwords via “infostealer” logs, which in turn ended up in a large dataset now publicly accessible. This dataset is part of a trove reportedly about 3.5 terabytes in size and drawn from multiple sources rather than one single hack.
For Gmail users (and users of other email providers) the risk is real. Whilst Google says it is not aware of a breach of its own login systems, it emphasises that passwords appearing in external dumps still pose a threat because of reused passwords, credential-stuffing attacks and phishing schemes.
What you can do:
The incident underscores a broader shift in cyber-risk: The point of compromise is increasingly the user’s device or environment rather than a central corporate database. And so the protection partly depends on users staying proactive. While there’s no indication this leak was caused by a Gmail-specific vulnerability, Gmail users should still treat their account credentials—and the recovery methods tied to them—as potential targets.
