Around 9.5 billion passwords have been leaked since 2004, making this one of the most severe cybersecurity threats in the world as of right now. This is 2.5 times the number of email addresses leaked, which currently stands at around 3.7 billion. Another disparity that can be seen is in the geographical distribution of leaked email addresses and passwords with all things having been considered and taken into account.
It turns out that around 3 passwords have been leaked per each email address of North America. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this means North Americans are 20% more likely to have their passwords leaked than might have been the case otherwise.
Elsewhere in the world, Europe and Central Asia came in at a close second. People living in these parts of the world lost approximately 2.8 passwords per email address, which in itself is a massive uptick from the global average.
As for the safest parts of the world in terms of passwords getting leaked, they turned out to be the Caribbean and Latin America where email addresses lost 1.6 passwords each. The MENA region, which refers to the combined landmass of the Middle East and North Africa, also fared reasonably well, with an average of 1.7 passwords getting leaked.
Password leaks are dangerous because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up leading to people losing access to their account. The Democratic Republic of Congo turned out to be the worst country of all, with around 5.7 passwords leaked for every email address. Coming in second was Czechia with 4.2, followed by Gambia with 4.1.
European nations did surprisingly poorly in this metric. Italy leaked 4 passwords per email address, with Germany also doing quite badly with 3.8 leaked passwords apiece. This just goes to show how critical it is for people to come up with unique passwords that combine enough symbols that they can never end up being brute forced by malicious actors who want to compromise accounts.
H/T: SurfShark
Read next: Beware of Email Impersonation and Find How Scammers Exploit Flaws in Forwarding
It turns out that around 3 passwords have been leaked per each email address of North America. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this means North Americans are 20% more likely to have their passwords leaked than might have been the case otherwise.
Elsewhere in the world, Europe and Central Asia came in at a close second. People living in these parts of the world lost approximately 2.8 passwords per email address, which in itself is a massive uptick from the global average.
As for the safest parts of the world in terms of passwords getting leaked, they turned out to be the Caribbean and Latin America where email addresses lost 1.6 passwords each. The MENA region, which refers to the combined landmass of the Middle East and North Africa, also fared reasonably well, with an average of 1.7 passwords getting leaked.
Password leaks are dangerous because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up leading to people losing access to their account. The Democratic Republic of Congo turned out to be the worst country of all, with around 5.7 passwords leaked for every email address. Coming in second was Czechia with 4.2, followed by Gambia with 4.1.
European nations did surprisingly poorly in this metric. Italy leaked 4 passwords per email address, with Germany also doing quite badly with 3.8 leaked passwords apiece. This just goes to show how critical it is for people to come up with unique passwords that combine enough symbols that they can never end up being brute forced by malicious actors who want to compromise accounts.
H/T: SurfShark
Read next: Beware of Email Impersonation and Find How Scammers Exploit Flaws in Forwarding
