Google Says Gmail Wasn't Hacked

News of a huge Gmail hack greeted readers Thursday morning, but Google says that the problem is grossly exaggerated.

Apparently hackers dropped about 5 million Gmail usernames and passwords in "a Russian Bitcoin forum" on Tuesday and around 60 percent were estimated to be active, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. So that means about 3 million or so usernames and passwords are circulating around, right? However, Google said only about 2 percent of the combinations were working and the whole hullabaloo was unnecessary. From the Google Online Security Blog:

It’s important to note that in this case and in others, the leaked usernames and passwords were not the result of a breach of Google systems. Often, these credentials are obtained through a combination of other sources. 

Google is saying that the "credential dump" was likely culled from other sources likely from sites that use a combination email username and password, not Google. The post also suggests that users create tougher passwords (think really long with lots of different characters) unique to Gmail to prevent their accounts being hacked.
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