Eli5 Why is it necessary to change email passwords if that email was breached from a completely different website?

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I never understood this. If my email (gmail as an example) got leaked among other thousands or millions of emails from a data breach from a website that I’ve signed up in, why then would I need to go to Google website and change my password if I would be using different passwords for these separate websites?

Or perhaps I answered my own question? Is it on the off chance that I or someone else *would* be using the same password across multiple websites? Should any actions then be brushed off if I *do* use different passwords?

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Email is a serious password to have stolen. Criminals could use your email to reset your passwords at other sites using poor “forgot my password” tools.

It’s true that you don’t have to change passwords if you use unique passwords on every other site, but you should check every one to make sure they haven’t change any and locked you out of any of your other accounts. Run through everything to make sure your passwords still work and they haven’t done anything nefarious elsewhere.

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