The Nigerian government, through the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, said it has begun an investigation into leaked passwords involving 183 million users of Google Mail.
A senior official at the Nigeria Data Protection Commission who preferred anonymity disclosed this to Nigerian Newssphere in an interview.
This comes as a recent report raised an alarm over a huge attack that appears to have left as many as 183 million email accounts, including Gmail, insecure.
The data leaked online includes not only the email accounts themselves but also the passwords believed to be associated with those logins of users, including Nigerians.
Accordingly, the breach could allow hackers entry not only to email accounts but also to all of the other logins that depend on Gmail.
This renewed warning was made known by ‘Have I Been Pwned’, a website that tracks data breaches and is run by Troy Hunt.
According to the Independent newspaper, the website has tracked 917 breached websites and more than 15 billion accounts.
Reacting, a reliable source at NDPC Nigerian Newssphere that the commission has already begun an investigation to know the extent of the impact on Nigerian Gmail and other email users.
“We’ve begun an investigation into the data breach with Gmail and others. We are on top of the matter to know the extent of the impact on Nigerian users,” he told Nigerian Newssphere.
