Millions of LinkedIn Passwords Leaked Online

Posted on June 7, 2012 by In House Web Solutions No Comments

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Change your LinkedIn password ASAP!

Earlier this morning a Russian forum member has claimed he has hacked LinkedIn and has published 6.5 million LinkedIn users passwords. LinkedIn has yet to confirm this allegation but several Twitter users have reported finding their hashed password. I personally have yet to find the list but according to a LinkedIn security personnel Per Thorheim latest tweet (@thorsheim) many have confirmed their password being stolen.

LinkedIn is currently putting all their efforts looking into the claim and are telling users to stay tuned for their findings and to change their passwords as an extra security measure. I know for one I changed mine immediately and checked my entire account make sure their were no breaches.

To say that I wasn’t a bit concerned about these breaches would be a lie. I don’t want all of my private and protected information out there for the world to see. I choose what I make public and what I don’t, and I would hate for it to get into the wrong hands. I’m always hearing about this type of stuff from my friend who runs his own business. He doesn’t want to face the possibility of a cyberattack and so has made the decision to look at somewhere like Fortinet to see how their Network Operations Solution can help to eliminate any type of breaches to their network so their data can be kept safe. And after this horrendous situation with LinkedIn, I hope he went through with this thought.

LinkedIn happens to have a very high security level when it comes to passwords and breaching it would be a very incredible task and this has brought out some skepticism in the industry that someone could have decrypted that many passwords as in most professionals options this would have taken countless hours; however, if this claim is validated then this will raise many questions of the encryption that LinkedIn is using and for that matter many other high level user based social networks as the encryption is industry standard.

I guess that leaves me to believe how safe is any of my information on the internet and whether or not I should putting certain information in my profiles or even using my credit cards. I know this sounds paranoid for sure but if a LinkedIn can get hacked then who is to say Facebook, Twitter or any other major social network.

Be sure to check back for any updates regarding LinkedIn’s findings on this.

Other Articles

CNET – Millions of LinkedIn Passwords reportedly leaked online
Zdnet.com