14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, authorities in Germany uncovered a total of 18 million credentials stolen by cybercriminals. The country’s Federal Office for Online Security (BSI) has set up a service that allows users to check if they’re impacted.
An investigation is ongoing, but so far, there’s evidence that at least 3 million of the stolen credentials belong to German users. There could be more since many of the compromised email addresses are on .com services, which could be utilized by people from all over the world.
The list of victims includes customers of Freenet, Vodafone, Kabel Deutschland, gmx.de and Deutsche Telekom. Authorities have managed to identify around 70% of the victims, The Local reported.
The stolen data is already being misused. Cybercriminals are sending malware-spreading emails to the compromised addresses.
The website on which German users can check to see if their accounts have been compromised is sicherheitstest.bsi.de. This is the website set up earlier this year after authorities discovered a different stash of 16 million accounts while analyzing botnets.
The site has been updated to include the new information. Users only have to enter their email address and they’re notified if they’re among the victims. Users are also advised to download Avira PC Cleaner to check if their computers are infected with malware.