More than 231 million stolen browser cookies linked to Australia have been uncovered in a major cybersecurity study, highlighting how hackers are increasingly bypassing passwords to hijack active online sessions. Research from NordVPN identified 52.4 billion stolen cookies in historical infostealer data collected over a 12-month period, with Australia ranking 34th globally for the number of exposed records. Cookie records appeared 4.6 times more often than passwords, files and payment card details combined in the analysed data. Google was the most frequently identified platform in the dataset, with 11.78 million stolen records, followed by Facebook with 8.1 million and Microsoft with 7.85 million. India recorded the highest volume of stolen cookies at 4.68 billion, followed by Brazil with 2.83 billion, the US with 2.43 billion, Indonesia with 2.1 billion and the Philippines with 1.93 billion.