14M University Email Accounts for Sale on Dark Web

Security researchers identified about 14 million email addresses and passwords from more than 300 U.S. universities—a sharp increase from the just shy of 3 million available last year.

Research from Digital Citizens Alliance and ID Agents found credentials going for $3.50 to $10 each from schools including University of Michigan, Penn State, University of Minnesota, Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell University, said a Dark Reading report. Researchers couldn’t verify whether the accounts were valid, but identified some were spoofed or phony.

The increase, researchers said, is likely because of the high number of megabreaches at other sites where students, faculty and alumni used their dot-edu addresses to register.

Hackers want dot-edu addresses for phishing schemes to access other university systems and to unlock student discounts.