thenextweb.com and other sources are reporting the close to 5 million gmail accounts were leaked through a Russian Bitcoin forum – which might, at least at first glance, appear to be very bad indeed.
However – TNW has dug some more and concluded that the list appears to be comprised of a number of duplicates and closed accounts, with large numbers of Russian and other foreign accounts (few US accounts) – and that some of this data is very old, which probably means that many of the accounts have changed their passwords.
TNW contacted Google and was told that the Google network was not breached, and that they take security very seriously.
We recommend that you turn on TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION for your Google accounts – that way, if a suspicious login takes place, you’ll get a text to your cellphone where you can verify that the login is you, and all others will be blocked as they won’t have your phone!