Gmail passwords list of nearly 5 million was posted in a Russian forum reported by a tech website this week.
A user "Tvskit" posted in a Russian forum claimed that 60% of the list was legitimate and it means that approximately of 3 million users at risk.
But according to internet security experts the list of passwords appear to be several years old. Also the list was suspected that was compiled from other websites, that are linked to Gmail addresses.
Peter Kruse, chief technology officer of Danish security firm CSIS Security Group, said in an e-mail, "We believe the data doesn't originate from Google directly. Instead it's likely it comes from various sources that have been compromised,"
Google said in its post on its Online Security Blog that less than two per cent of the username and password combinations posted online "might have worked."
"Our automated anti-hijacking systems would have blocked many of those login attempts." the post said. "We've protected the affected accounts and have required those users to reset their passwords."
Google firmly said that it was not a security breach.
"It's important to note that in this case and in others, the leaked usernames and passwords were not the result of a breach of Google systems," Google said in its blog post. "Often, these credentials are obtained through a combination of other sources. For instance, if you reuse the same username and password across websites, and one of those websites gets hacked, your credentials could be used to log into the others. Or attackers can use malware or phishing schemes to capture login credentials."
Though not all users' account have been compromised, Google still urges users to change their passwords and enable 2-step verification on their Google account.
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