Got LinkedIn? Here’s something to keep you amused: Go to LastPass’s secure (we think ) tool to see if yours was one of the 6 million passwords recently stolen from LinkedIn. As you can see, mine was.
Entertaining.
According to CNNTech’s Doug Gross, all is not especially lost if you’re password was ripped off. The thieves still have to de-encrypt them. If you were clever enough to concoct a complicated mess of a password, or if you use a hash-em-up tool like LastPass, KeePass, or 1Password, and if you were wily enough to invent a different password for every site you habituate, then you’re probably not at much risk. Still, you certainly should change your LinkedIn password. Matter of fact, you should change all your passwords every now and again.
The aftermath of the great LinkedIn caper has been a flood of scam e-mails. So be alert and don’t click on any links from any source you don’t recognize.
By the way, BBC quotes LinkedIn Director Vicente Silveira as saying, “Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid.” That may or may not be so: The password I ran through the LastPass tool, eliciting the big orange warning above, worked just fine on the site.
Man, that’s B.S. Shouldn’t they tell people if their passwords were stolen? Instead of just thinking that people will figure it out, or better yet (for them) never know. B.S., man, B.S.
Hey! I just noticed that I’m on your blog roll, that’s awesome!
@ TB: Your site’s nice, because it’s fresh and original — it doesn’t reiterate the same-old same-old PF mantra. Not that cluing people to the fact that we need to work hard, make a budget, live within our, means, save, and invest isn’t a worthy pursuit…it’s just that so many of us are doing that now, over and over and over and over and….zzzzzzzzzzz
I expect Linked-In is doing the best its engineers can. These sites are huge, and the hackers are young, quick-witted, and inventive. It’s a little like a dinosaur trying to keep up with a weasel.