Microsoft: The passwords of 44 million users have been compromised

Η Microsoft discovered that 44 million users use accounts whose usernames and passwords have been leaked due to security breaches.

ΤVulnerable logins were identified when a Microsoft research team audited all of the company's accounts between January and March of this year.

The group compared the accounts with a database that contains over three billion data sets that have leaked, at times. As a result, the Microsoft team found 44 million matches.

What are the types of accounts and what is the solution

The set of accounts consists of regular household user accounts and corporate accounts used through Microsoft Azure AD.

Microsoft explained that it reset the passwords to the home user accounts, and informed them of what was going on. While at the level of corporate accounts, the company will inform the system administrators, in order to proceed with the relevant required actions.

The company says it has found frequent use of the same passwords by multiple accounts. Recommends that users take care to create unique codes and make use of two-step verification, called Two or Multi-Factor Authentication.

According to Microsoft, the use of these security methods has prevented the breach of the respective account in 99,9% of cases.

What happens from now on

Although Microsoft has reset user passwords, unfortunately many choose to use easy passwords rather than secure ones. The company points out that the research team found that many users choose passwords that for security reasons should not be used.

The best solution to the problem of breaking any account is to use complex codes, and not the date of birth or codes of form 1234A.

Source