The Nigerian government has said it has begun an investigation into leaked passwords affecting 183 million Google Mail users.
A senior official at the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, NDPC, who preferred to remain anonymous, disclosed this to in an interview.
This comes after a recent report raised the alarm over a massive 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, including those of Nigerian users.
Accordingly, the breach could allow hackers entry not only to email accounts but also to all other logins that depend on Gmail.
This renewed warning was issued 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 the NDPC us that the commission has already begun an investigation to determine 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.