500m Linkedin Linkedincanalesinsider:
LinkedIn has just been hacked, leaking information of a staggering 500 million users.
A group of hackers scraped the data and posted it for sale online. The dataset includes publicly viewable information from LinkedIn.com, including names, email addresses and passwords – almost everything but social security numbers and bank account details were released in a 772 MB file that’s being passed around on darknet forums.
“This is a very serious data breach, and we will continue to work with law enforcement to find the parties responsible,” says LinkedIn.
We now know that the breach happened in 2012 – an eternity ago in internet years. It took no less than five years before someone decided to make a buck out of it.
A cybersecurity company known as LeakedSource acquired the data, and it claims that it has cracked almost all of the passwords.
“The fact that old LinkedIn records have surfaced on the darkweb should be a concern for LinkedIn users in particular, but we hope it serves as a reminder for users of other sites that reusing passwords across multiple social networks is risky behavior and can result in serious consequences,” LeakedSource says.
We are currently unable to confirm whether any information has been actually stolen or misused.
LinkedIn has not issued any official statement regarding the leak and there’s no indication as to what else may have been stolen.
This is the first major data breach to be discovered in recent years and it comes on the heels of a scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, which was banned from Facebook earlier this year.
In response to the news, Facebook has banned hundreds of apps from its platform.
Many experts are concerned that online identity theft is on the rise, and this data breach proves it.
It’s still unclear if LinkedIn had the right security measures in place, but we do know that those affected will have a hard time fixing the mess created five years ago. It’s highly likely that they will be receiving numerous spam emails and phone calls in the coming days and weeks.