The Privacy of Millions of Email Accounts at Stake

Technology is upgrading every day. Every passing second we see new developments, new products in the market full of competitors. Different companies try to provide a unique product to attract new customers and to stand out in the market full of various other companies. Humans are being more dependable on these technologies over the past years. These companies provide a product to ease us in various ways and in return we pretty much depend on these technologies for all sorts of purposes.

Privacy concerns of every user

We often find it difficult to perform different tasks in a specific time period and due to that different companies provide a variety of products to bring ease in the life of its customers but sometimes with the new products also comes a risk of failure of the user’s privacy protection. With all the new technology in the surroundings, one of the major issues is the privacy concerns of the users. People trust specific companies because of their experience with them over the past years. Before using any product one of the main concerns of every user is their privacy. Over the past years, people faced a lot of issues regarding failure in the protection of their privacy.

TrickBot Malware

TrickBot malware may have hacked 250 million email accounts which include millions of accounts belonging to the governments in the US, UK, and Canada. This malware isn’t new, actually, it’s been circulating since 2016. According to cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct, it recently started hacking email credentials and contacts. The researchers call this new approach TrickBooster and according to them it first hijacks accounts to send malicious spam emails and then deletes the send messages from the outbox and trash folders.

An investigation by Deep Instinct

According to a recent investigation, Deep Instinct found a database containing 250 million hacked email accounts. It states that millions of those email accounts belong to governments in the US and UK, as well as in Canada.


The database contained more than 25 million Gmail addresses, 19 million Yahoo.com accounts, and 11 million Hotmail.com addresses. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.co.uk were also a victim of this malicious attack. According to Deep Instinct, TrickBot could easily use these emails to spread more of its own malware.

According to TechCrunch, the researchers from Deep Instinct first detected TrickBooster on June 25th. It is still under investigation and in the process of sharing information with authorities.

"We are also in the process of reporting and providing details to CERTs and other relevant authorities, and we will work with partners in the community to make available the e-mail address dumps in a secure manner.", explained security researchers from Deep Instinct.

According to Deep Instinct, the update is widespread and unsettling. TrickBooster is a powerful addition to TrickBot’s variety of tools.

This new malware may have hacked over 250 million email accounts
Photo: Getty Images/Cultura RF

Read next: “Agent Smith” is bugging over 25 million Android devices by going viral and infecting them
Previous Post Next Post