German authorities discovered 18 Million stolen Email accounts

German authorities have discovered 18 Million Email Passwords, this is probably the biggest Data Theft in the history of the country.

German authorities have confirmed that nearly 18 million email accounts were stolen and compromised by hackers, it is the greatest theft occurred in the country in the history.

The news was published by the Der Spiegel journal on Thursday, German Authorities revealed that unknown hackers run another mass hacking campaign against private citizens stealing their data and information from major Internet companies in the country.

The law enforcement discovered a list of about 18 million stolen email addresses and passwords, the incident has occurred just two months later from the previous major data breach that hit 16 million German, also in that case email credentials were exposed.

Till now, there is no news regarding the massive data theft and there are no details on how criminals obtained a so large volume of information, experts believe that the extension of the data theft could be much larger. The data theft appears dated in the mid of January, journalists at Der Spiegel have hypothesized that behind both crimes there is the same criminal gang, they also suggested that hackers may be based in one of the Baltic countries.

As I explained many times in the past, every email account is a precious commodity in the hand of cyber criminals, they are used to send spam emails, to arrange phishing campaigns, or for online shopping.

Investigators sustain that the stolen emails may be also used to obtain the financial details of users’ accounts.

“It is suspected that these stolen records are being actively misused,” said Lutz Gaebel, spokesman of the prosecutor’s office in Verden.

Following the disclosure of news the German authorities invited citizens to take additional security measures to protect their account and prevent that they could be used for illicit activities.

It has been estimated that at least three million of the accounts belonged to German citizens, the German prosecutor and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) are already working to help the Internet users with adoption of further security measures.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Germany, data breach)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.