Yesterday, LinkedIn started investigating a password leak, followed by online dating site eHarmony, and now online music streaming site LastFM has announced on their blog that they too are investigating the leak of user passwords. As a precautionary measure, they are advising all their users to change their passwords immediately. You can do that here.
Yesterday, a Russian hacker reportedly stole 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords and 1.5 million passwords from eHarmony. It is not yet known if the hacking incidents are related.
It’s worth repeating the password tips my colleague Jindrich Kubec wrote in an earlier blog post.
A simple 5 step procedure for creating new passwords:
- Avoid anything ‘personal’ such as names and birth dates – see this list for examples of passwords to avoid
- Avoid overly complex passwords as you don’t want to write them down
- Don’t reuse passwords anywhere – leaks will happen in the future and you don’t want a single leak giving the bad guys keys to all the online services you use
- Longer passwords are always better
- Beware the phishers: always ensure you’re doing sensitive operation on the legitimate site, under a secure and verified connection. I’d also recommend never clicking on links in emails to update sensitive information Instead, manually enter the site and make changes.
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