In 2012, LinkedIn was a victim of a major data breach where hackers stole the information of millions of LinkedIn users. The biggest social media for professionals said at the time that ablaut 6.5 million accounts may have been compromised but the company now says it thinks that figure may actually have been under-represented and could as high as 100 million accounts. “Yesterday, we became aware of an additional set of data that had just been released that claims to be email and hashed password combinations of more than 100 million LinkedIn members from that same theft in 2012. We are taking immediate steps to invalidate the passwords of the accounts impacted, and we will contact those members to reset their passwords. We have no indication that this is as a result of a new security breach” according to the post.
In a separate account of the incidence posted on Motherboard, the alleged hacker puts the figure at 117 million.
LinkedIn has now contacted users are now asking everyone to change their passwords even if you have not been notified already especially for accounts set up before 2012. The passwords stolen by the hacker were encrypted and now they claim that 90% of those passwords have now been cracked.
The hacker has now put the information up for sale on the dark web for 5 bitcoins which is equivalent to about $2,200/423,000 Naira.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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