Gmail passwords appear in data breach: 183m accounts featured in hacks uploaded to Have I Been Pwned site

Google has called for calm amid a frenzy of sensational reports suggesting a Gmail security breach is affecting millions of accounts.

In fact, the source of the hubbub is a massive collection of breached credentials and data — comprising 183 million individual accounts — being uploaded to data breach information website Have I Been Pwned . Most of it is not newly breached information. Here’s what you need to know.

So Google hasn’t been hacked?

No, the data is not the result of a security breach at Google. And the overwhelming majority of it is not new in the sense that this is the first time it’s been posted online.

When crooks steal data or credentials, it tends to swirl around the internet, being copied to various massive collections that can be used to automate attacks or generate