Facebook, Gmail and Twitter users were the worst hit as cyber criminals invaded social media in a massive hackeing campaign.
Hackers have stolen usernames and passwords for nearly two million accounts at Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and others, according to a report released during the week.
Researchers at Trustwave, a cybersecurity firm said that the massive data breach was a result of keylogging software maliciously installed on an untold number of computers around the world.
The virus was capturing log-in credentials for key websites over the past month and sending those usernames and passwords to a server controlled by the hackers.
The researchers had on Nov. 24, 2013 tracked that server, located in the Netherlands. They discovered compromised credentials for more than 93,000 websites, including: 318,000 Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) accounts; 70,000 Gmail, Google+ and YouTube accounts; 60,000 Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) accounts; 22,000 Twitter (TWTR) accounts; 9,000 Odnoklassniki accounts (a Russian social network); 8,000 ADP (ADP, Fortune 500) accounts (ADP said it counted 2,400) and 8,000 LinkedIn (LNKD)accounts.
Trustwave notified these companies of the breach. They posted their findings publicly on Tuesday, CNN reported. “We don’t have evidence they logged into these accounts, but they probably did,” said John Miller, a security research manager at Trustwave.
Meanwhile, ADP, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter told CNNMoney they have notified and reset passwords for compromised users. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) declined to comment. Yahoo did not provide immediate responses.
Miller added that the team do not yet know how the virus got onto so many personal computers. The hackers set up the keylogging software to rout information through a proxy server, so it’s impossible to track down which computers are infected.
Among the compromised data are 41,000 credentials used to connect to File Transfer Protocol (FTP, the standard network used when transferring big files) and 6,000 remote log-ins.
The hacking campaign started secretly collecting passwords on Oct. 21, and it might be ongoing: Although Trustwave discovered the Netherlands proxy server, Miller said there are several other similar servers they haven’t yet tracked down.