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LinkedIn has admitted your account may have been hacked after security experts claimed yesterday that more than 6 million passwords had been leaked.
“We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts,” the company says in a blog post. The business-minded social network is continuing its investigation and taking steps to ensure those affected change their password.
If your password is one of those that’s been compromised, it will no longer work. This being LinkedIn, the next response is to send out some emails.
You’ll receive an email containing instructions on resetting your password if you’re one of those affected. Note there won’t be any links in this first email, so if you do receive an email purporting to be from LinkedIn asking you to visit a link, don’t click that sucker.
Only when you follow the instructions in the first email and request assistance with your password will LinkedIn send you a link to reset your login details. Because LinkedIn apparently won’t send one email when it can send three, you’ll also get an email from the network’s customer service team adding more context and explaining why you have to change your details.
They just can’t help themselves, can they?
LinkedIn also points out that anyone who hasn’t changed their password in a while can benefit from recent security enhancements if you change things up now, including hashing and salting of passwords. Ironically when I went to change my password, I found I couldn’t remember it anyway.
Like many of LinkedIn’s 160 million users, I logged in yesterday for the first time in a while, and made a bunch of new professional connections. Just think of all the business we could do! Which I’ll find out about the next time I log in, which will be the next time LinkedIn gets hacked.
Have you been affected? Do you use LinkedIn on a regular basis? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
