This may be of interest to some folks here, and I’ve not yet seen anything on it.
On 27 March prosecutors in Verden in northern Germany seized a list of about 18 million stolen e-mail addresses and passwords. Every German e-mail provider as well as several international ones are affected. About three million of the accounts have the German .de domain suffix, but that leaves open the possibility that quite a few non-Germans have been victimized as well.
The story broke day before yesterday (Thursday) in Der Spiegel: Cyberkriminalität: Fahnder entdecken 18 Millionen gestohlene E-Mail-Passwörter. This follows a theft of about 16 million e-mail addresses and passwords in January. However, the new theft is more serious: most of the January data were obsolete, but most of these accounts and passwords are believed to be active. Reportedly the hacked e-mail accounts have already been used to spread spam, and some of them are e-mail and password combinations for online shopping portals. German e-mail providers are to notify directly any of their customers who are victims, and by Monday there may be a German website where others can determine whether they are among the victims.
Der Spiegel suggests that the same group of hackers is responsible for both thefts and that they may be based in one of the Baltic countries. More links in English and German below the free-floating orange paraph.