Some users found themselves unable to log in to their Amazon accounts on Tuesday after the online retailer reportedly reset their passwords over fears of a possible security leak.
ZDNet reports that some of its readers in the United States and the UK have received emails from Amazon prompting them to change their passwords because the old passwords may have been compromised, although Amazon says there is "no reason" to believe that user credentials have been accessed by third parties. The measure, Amazon says, is done simply out of an "abundance of caution."
"We recently discovered that your [Amazon] password may have been improperly stored on your device or transmitted to Amazon in a way that could potentially expose it to a third party," says Amazon. "We have corrected the issue to prevent this exposure."
Users who have received the email are asked to go to their accounts on the Amazon homepage and click on the link that says "Forgot your password?" This will prompt them to change their old passwords with a new one, preferably different from and stronger than the last.
Amazon has yet to make an official statement about the password reset, although an Amazon support representative in the UK has responded to one customer asking about the email on Twitter. The rep simply said the company would like to "check into this with you in real-time" and sent the customer a link where they can change their password.
@LindsayShaerf We'd like to check into this with you in real-time. Please reach us through the following link: https://t.co/lBIsuYgn2k ^RM
— Amazon Help (@AmazonHelp) November 24, 2015
If Amazon has fixed the issue, then there should be no cause for alarm. However, the news comes at the most untimely moment - right in the middle of Amazon's week-long Black Friday sale, and customers will surely be annoyed to know they wouldn't be able to head straight to the marketplace because of the password reset.
However, it doesn't take long to change a password, and it's all for more secure online shopping. In fact, this is not the first time in the last few weeks that Amazon introduced a new security measure to customers. The retail giant also rolled out two-factor authentication, where users are asked to enter a password plus an additional security code sent to them via SMS, automated call or an authenticator app.
Other websites such as Google and Facebook have been offering two-factor authentication for quite some time now, but Amazon only rolled it out ahead of the Black Friday shopping bonanza.
Photo: Mike Seyfang | Flickr
