Russian hackers steal more than 1 billion passwords. Security firm seizes opportunity.

By Gail Sullivan August 6 at 3:33 AM For security firms, a major online security breach is a potential marketing opportunity.

The latest is legitimately scary: Russian hackers stole 1.2 billion unique username and password combinations – that’s nearly the population of China – and more than 500 million e-mail addresses, according to a New York Times story published late Tuesday.

The firm that uncovered the breach, Hold Security of Milwaukee, said a group of about 20 hackers from south-central Russia are to blame. The group, dubbed “CyberVor” (“vor” meaning “thief” in Russian), stole data from thousands of businesses Web sites, both small and large, and even from personal Web sites.

At the Times’s request, a security expert not affiliated with Hold analyzed the database of stolen information and confirmed its authenticity.

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