There’s no need to panic about the nearly five million compromised Gmail passwords that appeared in a Russian Bitcoin security forum this week, according to Google.

Fewer than 2% of the compromised username and password combinations work, Google’s spam and abuse team said in a blog post late yesterday. They also say Gmail’s automated anti-hijacking systems would block many potential login attempts.

“We’ve protected the affected accounts and have required those users to reset their passwords,” team members wrote in the blog post. “One of the unfortunate realities of the Internet today is a phenomenon known in security circles as “credential dumps” — the posting of lists of usernames and passwords on the Web. We’re always monitoring for these dumps so we can respond quickly to protect our users.”

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…