If you have a LinkedIn account, you may want to change your password ASAP. ZDNet.com reports that over 6.4 million passwords from the business-themed social networking service have reportedly been stolen by a unnamed person or persons and posted on a Russian language forum.
According to the story, the passwords posted on the message boards were hashed. However, it also claims that over 300,000 of the weaker passwords have already been hacked. Other hackers have been brought in to try to discover the remaining passwords.
The Finland security firm CERT-FI also claims that this password dump could also include a list of LinkedIn user emails, although it appears they are still encrypted.
LinkedIn"s Twitter page has been updated this morning with the message, "Our team is currently looking into reports of stolen passwords. Stay tuned for more." The stock price for LinkedIn, which went public in 2011, has gone down today after these new reports came to light.
The ZDNet.com report points out that LinkedIn has a total of over 150 million users worldwide. So even if over 6 million passwords have been stolen from the company"s servers, it would still affect less than 10 percent of its members.
Source: ZDNet