November 6, 2025
Exclamation Marks Won’t Save You!!
Two Billion Email Addresses Were Exposed
Internet shrugs, fights paywalls, and begs for one‑click password resets
TLDR: Nearly 2 billion email addresses and 1.3 billion passwords were exposed, making it easier for criminals to reuse logins across sites. The crowd is split between fatigue and fear, with debates over paywalled breach checks, calls for one‑click password resets, and reminders that 2FA can stop takeovers.
Two billion email addresses and 1.3 billion passwords just spilled into criminal circles, and the crowd reaction is… spicy. The data is real, verified, and massive—security folks processed nearly two billion unique emails and found 625 million new-to-them passwords. One user’s “#2 password” was literally their old one with “!!” slapped on. Cue the memes: exclamation marks aren’t security. This is classic “credential stuffing,” where crooks try the same email + password on lots of sites until something opens—think keys copied a million times. You can check your address on Have I Been Pwned, and yes, you should.
But the comments turned it into a soap opera. A chorus of “breach fatigue” rolled in—“too big to care.” Skeptics asked, “If it’s just my email, why panic?” Meanwhile, one user dropped a cautionary tale: an old email tied to a lapsed domain almost let someone hijack their Facebook, saved only by two-factor login codes. The sharpest drama: users with hundreds of custom aliases say HIBP paywalls bulk checks, sparking a fairness fight. Others want tech to fix this for them—automatic password rotations from managers, please—because manual resets at this scale are a joke. The thread split into three camps: shruggers, skeptics, and seatbelt-wearers who swear by 2FA and better passwords, no “!!” required.
Key Points
- •Processed 1,957,476,021 unique email addresses and 1.3 billion unique passwords.
- •625 million of the passwords were previously unseen by the processors.
- •Data sources include credential stuffing lists (from breaches) and stealer logs (from malware).
- •Verification included checking the author’s own data and contacting subscribers who confirmed active, valid passwords.
- •Goal is to identify and invalidate exposed credential pairs circulating among criminals.