linkedin-data-breach-hackIn 2012 Linked was hacked and Russian hackers stole approximately 6.5 million usernames and passwords. In May 2016 it was ‘discovered’ that a further 100 million email address and passwords had been taken in the attack.

Was was at the time a bad security incident has become a catastrophic breach.

Yesterday those of 100 million accounts were made public online. Anyone can get a copy of it with passwords in plain text. The implications of this are massive. Even if an affected user has since changed his/her LinkedIn password.

In a world with so many logins required for a multitude of sites and services it is common practice for many people to simply use a memorable password over and over again.

Strong-PasswordHowever, when one of those sites is breached, as LinkedIn was, just getting what might seem like pretty harmless information – your email address and password for that site – can in fact, provide hackers all they need to break into every other account you have. For example, if your email account is compromised, hackers can then reset passwords to other services you may have.

This is why you should use different passwords.

You should change your password for all internet services. Use a different password for every service. It might be a bit of pain, but it definitely will be less of a pain than trying to undo whatever trouble hackers are able to cause by accessing your accounts.

Use a strong password or phrase. See examples on how to think of a simple to remember yet strong password.

Cconsider using a Password manager like Keepass, Lastpass or Dashlane. Read about password managers here.