June 11, 2021

According to CyberNews, a 100GB text file containing passwords was leaked by a user on a popular hacker forum.

While the leaked collection, named RockYou2021, contained 8.4 billion passwords, CyberNews believes the name is a nod to RockYou’s data breach in 2009, when 32 million passwords were leaked after social game developer RockYou was hit by a cyber attack.

The 32 million passwords leaked in 2009 were stored unencrypted, making it easy for hackers to get hold of them.

The 2021 version of RockYou contains so many passwords because it tapped into a host of leaked databases from the past which includes the Compilation of Many Breaches responsible for disclosing more than 3.2 billion unique pairs of emails and passwords in plain text.

For more information, read the original story in Tech Republic.