Courtesy Announcement from NU ITS: Publicized Leak Good Reason to Take Security Precautions

An unencrypted database holding over 1.4 billion user ids and passwords, was discovered on the internet on Dec. 5. The University of Nebraska Cybersecurity and Identity team has received a list of university user credentials that may have been impacted.

The database included aggregated data from more than 250 previous data breaches and credential lists. Some of those breaches included LinkedIn, Netflix, Last.FM, and Minecraft, just to name a few.

As the team parses through the list to identify the at-risk users, we want to remind you of the following actions you can take:

• Use a unique password for every account. Never use the same password for work and personal accounts.
• If you suspect your account’s password is compromised—never reuse that password again.
• As with this database, hackers like to save any known passwords to try them on any user account, on any system.
• Use two-factor authentication when available.

For more information on the leak, read this article from TechWorm.