DarkBeam leaks billions of email and password combinations

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DarkBeam leaks billions of email and password combinations

Pierluigi Paganini
September 27, 2023

DarkBeam left an Elasticsearch and Kibana interface unprotected, exposing records from previously reported and non-reported data breaches.

The leaked logins present cybercriminals with almost limitless attack capabilities.

DarkBeam, a digital risk protection firm, left an Elasticsearch and Kibana interface unprotected, exposing records with user emails and passwords from previously reported and non-reported data breaches.

According to CEO of SecurityDiscovery Bob Diachenko, who first identified the leak, the now-closed instance contained over 3.8 billion records.

DarkBeam has apparently been collecting information to alert its customers in case of a data breach. The incident will most likely affect more than DarkBeam users alone.

The data leak, first identified on September 18th, was closed instantly after Diachenko informed the company about the issue.

Diachenko claims that such data leaks usually happen due to human error, for example when employees forget to password-protect the instance after maintenance.

Cybernews contacted DarkBeam for comment but received no reply at the time of writing.

DarkBeam leak — Sample of leaked data. Image by SecurityDiscovery.

Limitless attack capabilities

Among the leaked data, there were 16 collections named “email 0-9” and “email A-F,” each containing 239,635,000 records.

Exposing the collections of login pairs – emails and passwords – is dangerous as it provides malicious actors with almost limitless attack capabilities.

Darkbeam data sample — Sample of leaked data. Image by SecurityDiscovery.

While the majority of the leaked data comes from already known sources, the extensive and organized compilation of this data presents a significant threat to individuals whose credentials have been disclosed.

Threat actors might target affected users with crafted phishing campaigns using their personal information. Phishing messages often impersonate trusted people or organizations to trick victims into giving up sensitive data.

Similar databases – large combinations of email and password pairs – have been leaked in the past. So far, the largest leaked password collection of all time, dubbed RockYou, contained 8.4 billion password entries, which had presumably been combined from previous data leaks and breaches.