To protect its users, Taringa is currently sending a password reset link via an email to its users as soon as they access their account with an old password. One of the contacted users has also shared a screenshot of the notice with The Hacker News, as shown above. Weve made a massive password reset strategy and also increased the encryption of the passwords from MD5 to SHA2. Weve also been in contact with our community via our customer support team, a Taringa spokesperson told The Hacker News. Leaked Database Analysis. Here below we have a brief analysis of the leaked database, which suggests that even after countless warnings, most people are continuously using deadly simple passwords to safeguard their most sensitive data. As you can see in the image given below, Leak. Base team managed to crack 2. MD5 algorithm, out of which over 1. Million were unique passwords. The vast majority of the cracked passwords were alpha and lower case alpha and did not contain any special characters or symbols. Here below we have the list of most popularcommon passwords chosen by Taringa users that also includes top worst passwords such as 1. The most popular length of the password was six characters long, followed closely by eight characters, nine and ten characters. Expectedly, the percentages drop drastically as you go higher in length. Besides the cracked passwords, Leak. Base also take a look at the email addresses contained in the leaked data dump, and the most common email domains are as follows. But, are Taringa users entirely responsible for choosing weak passwords Not completely. Its also the fault of the company, who failed to enforce a strong password policy on their users, eventually allowing them to sign up with weak passwords. After data breaches, the organisations tend to blame the end users for poor password security, but they forget to provide them one. So far, it has not been clear who is behind the attack on Taringa, neither how the attackers managed to breach into its servers. Meanwhile, in a separate news,we reported about an unknown hacker selling personal details on more than 6 million high profile Instagram accounts on an online website, Doxagram, after the hacker breached the Facebook owned photo sharing service using a flaw in its API. How to Help Protect Yourself from Data Breaches. Of course, if you are one of those potentially affected users, you are strongly recommended to change your passwords immediately. Also, change passwords for other online accounts for which you are using the same password as for Taringa account. Even if any website allows you to create an account with a weak password, you should always choose a complex password. Use a good password manager, if you find following best practices difficult. Moreover, avoid clicking on any suspicious link or attachment you received via an email and providing your personal or financial information without verifying the source correctly.