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LinkedIn Confirms, Apologizes for Stolen Password Breach (Mashable)
LinkedIn has confirmed that some of its user passwords have been compromised. The company has also issued an apology “for the inconvenience this has caused our members.” PC Magazine “We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts,” LinkedIn director Vincente Silveira wrote in a blog post. “We are continuing to investigate this situation.” The company did not, however, confirm how many passwords were involved, though it reportedly affected about 6 million of LinkedIn’s 161 million users. ars technica Every single member of the list of the 25 worst passwords of 2011 was leaked, along with others such as “ihatemyjob,” “nobama,” and “iwantanewjob.” At least one unhappy job hunter apparently used “linkedinblows.” Even the password “strongpassword” was leaked and cracked. VentureBeat The security breach is due to an exploit with the way LinkedIn’s mobile app handles a user’s calendar data. A hacker was able to steal and publish around 6.5 million hashed passwords from the company using the exploit, which was flagged after someone requested help deciphering the encrypted password data this morning. The Verge Affected users will receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their password. This doesn’t appear to be the standard password reset procedure, either — any affected user will automatically be locked out of their account, and the password reset email being sent by LinkedIn won’t contain any links to the site. continued…
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