DUSHANBE, August 6, 2014, Asia-Plus – The New York News reports that a Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses.

The records, discovered by Hold Security, a firm in Milwaukee, reportedly include confidential material gathered from 420,000 websites, including household names, and small Internet sites.  Hold Security has a history of uncovering significant hacks, including the theft last year of tens of millions of records from Adobe Systems.

Hold Security would not name the victims, citing nondisclosure agreements and a reluctance to name companies whose sites remained vulnerable.  At the request of The New York Times, a security expert not affiliated with Hold Security analyzed the database of stolen credentials and confirmed it was authentic.  Another computer crime expert who had reviewed the data, but was not allowed to discuss it publicly, said some big companies were aware that their records were among the stolen information.

Alex Holden, the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security, notes that hackers did not just target U.S. companies, they targeted any website they could get, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to very small websites.  According to him, most of those sites are still vulnerable.

There is worry among some in the security community that keeping personal information out of the hands of thieves is increasingly a losing battle.  In December, 40 million credit card numbers and 70 million addresses, phone numbers and additional pieces of personal information were stolen from the retail giant Target by hackers in Eastern Europe.