The news of the password theft on LinkedIn has been confirmed by the company itself: 6 million accounts have been compromised. Here are the tips on how to act now, avoiding falling victim to phishing.
Another major network is hit in the security sector: LinkedIn admits that approximately 6 million passwords have been stolen.
The news was just awaiting official confirmation from the company, as a few days ago all the stolen passwords appeared on a Russian forum, uploaded online by an anonymous hacker.
In reality, at the time they were posted on the forum, the passwords were not immediately available as they were encrypted according to the security system in use on LinkedIn servers: in fact, the cybercriminal used the forum precisely to ask for help in cracking the stolen package.
It is unknown if the operation was successful, but it is reasonable to assume that sooner or later the list of passwords stolen from LinkedIn will be entirely available “in clear text”.
In cases like these, the only wise thing to do is change your password, also modifying the access code for other sites if you use the same combination elsewhere.
However, it should be noted that in these hours, due to the confirmed news of the password theft, many users are receiving phishing emails apparently sent by the LinkedIn staff, inviting them to change their password but then redirecting unsuspecting users to malicious links.
LinkedIn itself warns of the danger, pointing out that official communications do not contain any links, only a step-by-step procedure for changing the password.
Any official email from LinkedIn will only arrive to users whose profile has actually been subject to password theft, therefore not to everyone.
The intention is to allow the change of access codes because the previous passwords subject to attack – therefore only those already stolen – will all be reset indiscriminately.
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