LinkedIn passwords 'leaked by hackers'

[completerookie]

The BBC has said that 6 million passwords from linkedIn have been leaked
basically, it looks like LinkedIn has been hacked, and the database of encrypted passwords have been release inviting hackers to try and crack the encryption,

so just a nod to anyone that has a LinkedIn account, its time NOW to change your password just in case.

kev

[Steve G Griggs]

And I hope everyone is not using the same password for multile log-ins...
One of the reasons to keep changing passwords regularly.

[Mike Hughes]

There's no real need to keep changing passwords regularly. I like to use a number of different passwords depending on the importance of the account and the likelihood of them being compromised.

So linkedin, forums, etc have a basic password.

ebay, amazon, etc have a more secure one

Business / hosting services another level up.

Anything to do with banking, card payments etc extremely secure and regularly changed.

I did see something that said linkedin were going to email people whose accounts were compromised. But then again they're also saying they don't know the extent of the data loss yet so how are they supposed to do that if they don't what's happening?

Mike

[Benjamin Dyer]

If you want to check if your linkedin password has been compromised here is a handy tool:

https://lastpass.com/linkedin/

[Mike Hughes]

It's hard to find a password that isn't on the list according to that tool.

I wonder if it's just looking in a dictionary and saying yes to any word and a number?

Mike

[malbro]

I did see something that said linkedin were going to email people whose accounts were compromised. But then again they're also saying they don't know the extent of the data loss yet so how are they supposed to do that if they don't what's happening?

Mike

Not sure if it applies to everyone but LinkedIn insisted on me changing my password before letting me on to the site. No explanation of course.

Given that hackers got these passwords why would anyone want to let another web site manage their passwords e.g LastPass?

[completerookie]

a while back, I purchased two fingerprint readers, any page that requires a login gets some obscure password with many characters that are not numbers or letters and as long as I want.
It gives the ability to login to the same site with more than one persons details (simply popsup a little menu)
all encrypted to 256bits and as long as my fingerprint matches, then I can look up the actual password that I had

having said that I use obscure passwords, one back I tried putting savings into (online access) insisted on just numbers and letters, all punctuation was banned
if they cant even offer good password facilities, then why on earth would I trust them with my money, they were most un-sympathetic when I complained about the password ruls.

the lovely thing is that it even works in win7-64bit, took a bit of finding, eventually tracked the reader down to the USA