LinkedIn is the world’s biggest social network with a focus on professional, resume and experience-based interaction.
Millions of professionals, domain investors included, are using LinkedIn to connect with peers. The company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the LNKD symbol.
A data breach at LinkedIn has mobilized its team to reset all passwords for accounts registered before 2012 that have not been changed.
“On May 17, 2016, we became aware that data stolen from LinkedIn in 2012 was being made available online. This was not a new security breach or hack. We took immediate steps to invalidate the passwords of all LinkedIn accounts that we believed might be at risk. These were accounts created prior to the 2012 breach that had not reset their passwords since that breach.”
The data in question amount to a staggering 117 million records, on top of a confirmed 6.5 million records that were posted online.
LinkedIn thus advised everyone to change their account passwords:
“We recommend that you regularly change your LinkedIn password and if you use the same or similar passwords on other online services, we recommend you set new passwords on those accounts as well.”
It is also a good idea not to share the same password across accounts, e.g. for LinkedIn and GoDaddy. This is a classic no-no!
Data breach? How did they discover the breach? What are they going to do to secure the site against future breaches?