Millions of LinkedIn passwords reportedly leaked – take action NOW

Although not yet confirmed by the business-networking website, it is being widely speculated that over six million passwords belonging to LinkedIn users have been compromised.

A file containing 6,458,020 SHA-1 unsalted password hashes has been posted on the internet, and hackers are working together to crack them.

Although the data which has been released so far does not include associated email addresses, it is reasonable to assume that such information may be in the hands of the criminals.

Investigations by Sophos researchers have confirmed that the file does contain, at least in part, LinkedIn passwords.

As such, it would seem sensible to suggest to all LinkedIn users that they change their passwords as soon as possible as a precautionary step. Of course, make sure that the password you use is unique (in other words, not used on any other websites), and hard to crack.

If you were using…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.