Billions of email addresses and passwords compromised

Over many years, billions of email addresses and passwords have been exposed as a result of data breaches, data leaks and cybersecurity incidents.

As society continues to move more and more towards a digitised way of living and working, personal contact information is increasingly at risk and is targeted by hackers to try to exploit us. There have been many infamous incidents of data breaches where personal information like email addresses have been affected, and the Virgin Media data leak discovered in early 2020 is one such example.

We continue to represent thousands of people who were affected by the Virgin Media privacy incident, and you may still be in time to claim – find out if you are here now.

The risks that billions of email addresses and passwords can be exposed

The fact that there are billions of email addresses and passwords that have been exposed in data breaches, leaks and hacks over many years is incredibly worrying. In all likelihood, I imagine that most people will have suffered some form of data breach in their lifetime so far, even if it is a matter of a name or an email address being exposed. There have been so many major data breaches where swathes of personal information have been exposed, much of which has been publicised in the media over many years.

The fact that there are billions of email addresses and passwords that have been affected by data breaches could mean that most of us are, or have been, at risk of some form of exposure. As we often say, even a “small” data breach can be significant as it may only take one piece of information for hackers to try to exploit people. Even in the case of “just an email address” being breached, hackers could contact the victim and try to pass themselves off as a legitimate organisations or try to commit fraud by way of phishing. As such, there is no such thing as a completely risk-free data breach in most cases.

These risks are matters that we must all take heed of, and we must all be wary both now and moving forward as our society continues to become more digitised.

Virgin Media data leak: another contributor

When it comes to there being billions of email addresses and passwords having been affected by data breaches over many years, one contributor in the form of email addresses was that of the Virgin Media data leak.

In this incident, a database was left exposed and accessible online for a period of 10 months between April 2019 in February 2020. During the data breach period, we know that at least one unknown third party is understood to have accessed the information. This means that there are risks in place for the 900,000 people who were affected by this incident.

This was an example of how one simple error could cause the information for almost a million people being exposed.

Check if you are still eligible to join the Virgin Media Group Action

We have been fighting for justice for thousands of people who were affected by the Virgin Media data leak over many years and we are now at advanced stages for the cases that we are pursuing. We are operating on No Win, No Fee basis for eligible clients and, as things stand, we cannot completely guarantee whether anybody who wishes to join now are still in time to do so.

If you have yet to start your claim and you were affected by the data breach, please make sure to complete our forms here now as soon as you can. We can still vet your case and let you know if it is something that we might be able to help you with so you can join the action with thousands of others.

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