By Aldo Panessidi
The business networking website LinkedIn has confirmed reports that some of its users’ passwords have been stolen and leaked on the Internet. According to Finnish security firm CERT-FI, a forum member in Russia has claimed responsibility for stealing 6.46 million encrypted LinkedIn passwords and posting them online. In fact, with the quad processing power provided by today top brand cell phones and tablets like the:
Apple iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPad 2 and iPad 3
Blackberry Touch 9900, Blackberry 9790, Blackberry 9360, Blackberry Torch and the Blackberry Playbook
Samsung S3, Samsung S2, Samsung S2 X, Samsung S2 LTE, Samsung Note and the Samsung Tab
HTC Evo, HTC One X, HTC one S, HTC One V, HTC Amaze as well as the HTC Flyer and HTC Jetstream
Motorola Razor, Motorola Defy as well as the Motorola Xoom
Nokia Lumia 900, Nokia Lumia 800, Nokia Lumia 710
LG Optimus L7, LG Optimus Pro, LG Optimus 4G LTE and LG Optimus Pad
Sony Xperia U, Sony Xperia Play, Sony Xperia Ray
could have easily been used by the hacker to perpetrate the cybercrime.
It is recommended that all LinkedIn users change their passwords as a precautionary measure. If you use that same passwords on other sites (as most people do), you should change it on those sites as well.
We want to provide you with an update on this morning’s reports of stolen passwords. We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts. We are continuing to investigate this situation and here is what we are pursuing as far as next steps for the compromised accounts:
- Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid.
- These members will also receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords. There will not be any links in this email. Once you follow this step and request password assistance, then you will receive an email from LinkedIn with a password reset link.
- These affected members will receive a second email from our Customer Support team providing a bit more context on this situation and why they are being asked to change their passwords
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It is worth noting that the affected members who update their passwords and members whose passwords have not been compromised benefit from the enhanced security we just recently put in place, which includes hashing and salting of our current password databases.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our members. We take the security of our members very seriously. If you haven’t read it already it is worth checking out my earlier blog post today about updating your password and other account security best practices.
