More Than 6.5 Million LinkedIn Passwords Possibly Hacked

LinkedIn password breach | BCBusiness
Millions of LinkedIn passwords were potentially leaked to a Russian hacker website.

Millions of user passwords for the professional networking site could be comprised and posted to a Russian hacker website.

LinkedIn users: Stop reading this and go change your password.
 
The networking website for professionals, which reportedly hosts 150 million users, is investigating the possible leak of around 6.5 million user passwords. The company confirmed via Twitter that it was looking into the matter.
 
“Our team continues to investigate, but at this time, we’re still unable to confirm that any security breach has occurred,” the company wrote on the social media site. “Stay tuned here.”
 
The hacker responsible allegedly wants to make the point that the site isn’t secure. After obtaining the millions of passwords, the thief uploaded encrypted versions without the accompanying email usernames onto a Russian hacker website.
 
However, the encryption certainly isn’t foolproof, especially with nimble hackers. Dagens IT, a biweekly newspaper covering the tech sector out of Oslo, is reporting that of the 6.5 million encrypted passwords, around 300,000 encryptions have already been cracked.
 
With all the Internet chatter around the potential leak, the hacker obviously made his point. Perhaps LinkedIn isn’t as secure as it should be, and this taught users the lesson that we should take the time to change our passwords more often.