WASHINGTON: The FBI has linked a hacker to the theft of 1.2 billion internet credentials, the largest heist of its kind.
A hacker known as “mr.grey” is named in court documents filed by the bureau last year, said sources.
The hacker was linked to the stolen logins via a Russian email address.
Previously, “mr.grey” had advertised the credentials to Facebook and Twitter accounts for sale online. It was the American cyber security firm Hold Security that initially reported the theft of the credentials and an additional 500 million email addresses last year.
The Russian crime ring responsible for stealing the data – dubbed CyberVors – had breached more than 420,000 websites, according to Hold Security.
In August, the firm said, “To the best of our knowledge, they mostly focused on stealing credentials, eventually ending up with the largest cache of stolen personal information, totalling over 1.2 billion unique sets of e-mails and passwords.”
Hold Security then began marketing a “breach notification service” to users concerned that their details had been affected, for $120 (£71) per month.
