Russian cyberpolice have clarified that the recently discovered archive of 16 billion logins and passwords is not the result of a new, large-scale data breach. Instead, they attribute the collection to years of accumulation by various malicious programs like password stealers.

The archive, discovered by Cybernews researchers, contains data from various popular services and social networks. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ UBK specialists have concluded that this is a compilation built over time, not a fresh hack.

According to the “Bulletin of the Cyberpolice of Russia” Telegram channel, the massive dataset includes significant amounts of duplicate information, outdated passwords, and previously compromised data. The department emphasized that it isn’t the consequence of a single, recent breach of a major storage system.

Cybernews initially reported that almost all the data had not been previously published and was primarily gathered through malicious software delivered via phishing emails or compromised websites. They stated the data comprised 30 distinct databases, each containing URLs, logins, and passwords, with individual blocks ranging from tens of millions to 3.5 billion records.

The Russian cyberpolice stated that Cybernews’ presentation may have created a misleading impression regarding the scale and recency of the threat. Despite clarifying the archive’s origins, the cyberpolice strongly advise users to update their passwords for important accounts and enable two-factor authentication (2FA). They also recommend checking if their data has been compromised.