Yeah, same. Long-time user of an em-dash—love a cheeky en-dash in my ranges too. But now LLMs are using them all the time, out of context, and with spaces on either side.

Is nothing safe?! Next it'll be semicolons!

I couldn't find in the article a list of all platforms affected, only this:

billions of login credentials from social media, VPNs, developer portals and user accounts for all the major vendors.

Since I don't use the big three, I'd be really interested to see a list, before I go through every online account I ever created with a throwaway email.

I wouldn't rely on software running on the (potentially infected) system, since all malware these days will attempt to turn off or evade antivirus tools.

If you believe your device is compromised then you should wipe it and reinstall the OS. You should also delete any executable files on external media (secondary drives etc.) that may have been infected (eg. any setup.exe programs or portable exes), or at the very least verify the cryptographic hashes of those files if possible.

If you want to know if your credentials appear in a breach then search on Have I Been Pwned?. If it says your password appeared in an "infostealer dump" then you know that it was stolen directly from your device and you need to wipe it. If it was just the website that was breached then it wasn't you personally that was hacked and you should just change your password.

This article is about credentials that are stolen directly from users' devices that are compromised with malware. So they will be that user's passwords for whatever services they were using while infected with the malware. This is why the dumps contain passwords for just about every online service that exists.

This isn't an actual database breach of the major providers.

Thanks for clarifying. Still, does this affect every "device" user out there? There must be some sort of explanation here, what's the attack vector etc. I couldn't find it even on that Lithuanian guy's website.

Is this real? The article gives no concrete details.

This forbes blog is about this article:

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

(cybernews.com)

The only silver lining here is that all of the datasets were exposed only briefly: long enough for researchers to uncover them, but not long enough to find who was controlling vast amounts of data. Most of the datasets were temporarily accessible through unsecured Elasticsearch or object storage instances.

So there isn't really an explanation other than "somebody collected these somehow and left the data unsecured."

The attack vector for infostealer malware is usually social engineering, getting unwary users to download infected trojanized software via phishing and malvertising etc.

If you follow security news, you will see articles about infostealer malware campaigns all the time.

Minecraft cheat tools may actually contain malware

: Infostealers posing as popular cheat tools are cropping up on GitHub

(www.theregister.com)

PyPI, npm, and AI Tools Exploited in Malware Surge Targeting DevOps and Cloud Environments

Malware-laced PyPI and npm packages steal developer credentials, CI/CD data, and crypto wallets. Attacks target macOS, AI workflows, and cloud setups

The Hacker News (thehackernews.com)

Rust-based Myth Stealer Malware Spread via Fake Gaming Sites Targets Chrome, Firefox Users

Rust-based Myth Stealer malware spreads via fake gaming sites, stealing browser data from millions worldwide.

The Hacker News (thehackernews.com)

New EDDIESTEALER Malware Bypasses Chrome's App-Bound Encryption to Steal Browser Data

New Rust-based EDDIESTEALER spreads via fake CAPTCHA pages, stealing credentials and bypassing Chrome encryption.

The Hacker News (thehackernews.com)

Aaaah! Act now! Hurry! Change ALL your passwords! Your password was stolen by malware on your device so change it now... on your device... that still has malware... Wait a minute. Shouldn't this article at least suggest removing the malware first?

This passage reads 100% like AI wrote. Right down to the over used turns of phrase that AI inserts into every output to the prompts you give it

It’s probably your fault, you loved em dashes too much that AI started using them after stealing all your content

I need more information. How is the malware being distributed to these devices? How can we check if our credentials are in this dump? Shouldn't the respective platforms be doing due diligence to notify those effected and asking them to change their passwords?

I feel it may be fairly likely that this inforstealer Malware is the type distributed by dubious apps the play store and similar have had to take down but aren't actively notifying users who installed them. Is it predominantly phones that are effected or is this malware PC based? Changing your passwords is important but sounding the alarm with no actual information is just... Ill advised. It's fear mongering.

Oh, so I'm probably safe.

I don't do mainstream social media, and I don't answer phone calls, texts, or emails from unknown sources.

Mama told me not to talk to strangers, and I took that into the digital age.

What's the total human population again, 8 billion?

I don't know about you, but I have 2 Apple accounts, 2 Facebook accounts, and like 9 Google accounts. I know I'm above average, but it's not hard to have 1 of each for normal uses.

Reads more like an advertorial. Low on detail, high on "passkeys are the future", and plenty of typos.

Yeah, what’s with the spaces? I’ve been an emdash slut for 20 years, but I’ve never put spaces on either side. I’ve also scarcely seen anyone else do that, until LLMs became popular.

What you say?

I was going to say "I don't use em-dashes in my books for when they sole all those books" but then I went into my first book and found 22 em-dashes so... oops. I thought the word processor changed -- into an en-dash and not an em-dash.

Windows Defender is absolutely useless and Malwarebytes is only slightly better. I’d recommend Bitdefender, and make sure it’s installed on a freshly erased computer. Digital security is an arms race and the bad guys are winning.