Researchers discover a large email spam list

[randomperson89]

A group of internet researchers possibly have discovered a large list of emails used to spam people with messages, possibly originating from data breaches such as the LinkedIn breach in 2012/

 

SOURCE: Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/record-spam-list-1.4268167)

 

The researchers believe that the list is used to deliver spam and/or possibly malware to the affected emails.

 

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Internet security researchers have found what they believe is the biggest list of email addresses and passwords used to deliver spam and malware to victims around the world.

 

The list was discovered by a spambot server in the Netherlands, that possibly contained a list of up to 711 million emails and passwords.

 

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A record 711 million emails and passwords — including many leaked in known breaches such as the one that hit LinkedIn in 2012 — have been found on a "spambot" server in the Netherlands.

"Just for a sense of scale, that's almost one address for every single man, woman and child in all of Europe," wrote internet security blogger Troy Hunt in a post today, flagging the incident.

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The list was found on a spambot server nicknamed Onliner with an IP address in the Netherlands by Benkow, a self-described French "malware hunter" and blogger.

 

Although there's a high amount of recorded emails, an internet security blogger, Tory Hunt, notes that some or most of those emails are just fake or inactive emails.

 

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However, he noted "the number of real humans in the data is going to be somewhat less" because many of the email addresses appear to be automatically generated and some of them aren't in the proper format for an email address.

 

The spambot was used to transmit malware to the victim's PCs and collect personal and possibly bank info to the perpetrator.

 

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Benkow said in a blog post that the spambot has been used since 2016 to spread banking malware called Ursnif. It's designed to steal personal information and information about a user's computer and send it to the spambot's owner.

 

If you want to check if you are a victim of this, please check https://haveibeenpwned.com/. And maybe, we should advise you to change your passwords... or take a Google security audit, but I'm not the boss of you.

[mr moose]

Am I the only one who cringes a bit when told they can put their email address into a website they have never seen before?

[randomperson89]

Just now, mr moose said:

Am I the only one who cringes a bit when told they can put their email address into a website they have never seen before?

Well, it was a result of a data breach. So even the recent Instagram beach could be on the list.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

Am I the only one who cringes a bit when told they can put their email address into a website they have never seen before?

nope

[Mr.Meerkat]

Hue hue hue, my primary email is on that list  

 

Ah well...

[randomperson89]

21 minutes ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Hue hue hue, my primary email is on that list  

 

Ah well...

Ripperoni, Pepperoni.

[8uhbbhu8]

lol both of my secondary emails are on that list  My primary isn't!!! (yet )

[randomperson89]

Thank god mine is not on the list.

[randomperson89]

I just put in LinusTechTips@gmail.com (Their business email), and there's a bunch of breaches..... Either @LinusTech or @nicklmg or @jmart604 or @CPotter or @dezeltheintern or @Slick should get something done about this......

[2FA]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Am I the only one who cringes a bit when told they can put their email address into a website they have never seen before?

It's pretty well known, but yeah I get you.

[randomperson89]

So if @LinusTech or @nicklmg or @jmart604 or @CPotter or @dezeltheintern or @Slick haven't been updated on the business email, they should really start reading some books.

 

 

[JohnnyCorporalTech]

Sorry Repost:

 

[MyName13]

Hahaha, this has happened already some time ago, people put emails into a website to check if it's there, but they actually gave their emails away to spammers.