6.5 Million LinkedIn Passwords Hacked!

LinkedIn, the social network for professionals has experienced a huge data breach where it's believed 6.5 million users of the service passwords have been cracked. A breach of this magnitude can be catastrophic for the company as well as users. Anytime a company experiences some type of security breach its reputation gets a little tarnished and with a figure like 6.5 million user passwords you can bet your bottom dollar LinkIn's will be bruised and battered before this whole fiasco is over.

In regards to users, the potential for identity theft becomes a horrific reality especially for those who may use one password to access several accounts. It's been reported that LinkedIn has been for the most part pretty tight lipped about the event with the exception of this blog post.

Users may be wondering how do they know if their passwords were cracked and what can be done to protect their data?

The only way to be sure if your data was among the 6.5 million passwords is to contact LinkedIn or if the company contacts you. In the event that LinkedIn contacts you they will provide you with instructions on what you will need to do. In the meantime I would strongly suggest changing your LinkedIn password, and if you use that same password on other accounts change those passwords as well since it is unknown at this point in time what the thieves actually have access to with the use of user's passwords. For more information click here!

@ITSecPr0