by Tolu Orekoya

The professional social networking website LinkedIn has been hacked and 6.46 million passwords stolen. According to tech website The Verge, a user in a Russian forum claimed to have done the deed. He also created a dump and had uploaded all the passwords onto the internet. The user uploaded 6,458,020 hashed passwords, but no usernames.

At this point in time, the passwords are encrypted, but the encryption method LinkedIn uses is poor and some people have already had their passwords hacked.

To check if your password has been hacked go here: http://www.leakedin.org/

LinkedIn was slow to get on the case, taking several hours to confirm the hack, but have now come out with two links (here and here). The links explain that hacked accounts have had their passwords automatically reset and how to create a more secure password.