Several high-profile email providers have been the subject of a leak of user account information, which includes usernames, email addresses and unencrypted passwords. The leak involves multiple services; popular names such as: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and Mail.ru.
The security firm that discovered the breach, Hold Security, believes that many of the accounts involved in this leak have not been previously leaked. According to its analysis there are over 272 million unique email and unencrypted password pairs, where 42.5 million have not been previously leaked.
Hold Security was able to get a hold of the data for free. The hacker originally asked for 50 roubles (equating to around 75 cents or 52 pence) for the entire list. Instead, an agreement was reached to provide the data for free if the firm was to post positive comments about the hacker in a forum.
