LinkedIn is encouraging users to change their passwords as it confirmed on May 18 that a hacker has put 117 million accounts up for sale on the dark web.
Motherboard reported that a hacker named Peace is selling the hacked accounts on The Real Deal, an illegal web marketplace. These accounts, according to Peace, were stolen during the 2012 LinkedIn data breach.
The hacker is selling the data for 5 bitcoins, which is equivalent to about $2,200.
LeakedSource, a paid hacked data search engine, in the meantime, also told Motherboard that it has obtained the stolen data.
According to Motherboard, Peace and a member of LeakedSource said there exist 167 million accounts in the hacked database. About 117 million of these have email and password combinations.
"Yesterday, we became aware of an additional set of data that had just been released that claims to be email and hashed password combinations of more than 100 million LinkedIn members from that same theft in 2012," said LinkedIn's Cory Scott in a blogpost. "We are taking immediate steps to invalidate the passwords of the accounts impacted, and we will contact those members to reset their passwords."
Scott went on to say that there is no sign the recently surfaced emails and passwords are a result of another hack.
In fact, he added that LinkedIn has bestowed security tools, including dual factor authentication along with email challenges, to make certain that members of the site are safeguarded from any malicious attacks.
However, the company is highly encouraging its members to enable safety center's two-step verification and to use stronger passwords.
Scott further noted that it has already demanded parties to stop making stolen data available on the Web. Should they fail to comply with the company's demands, LinkedIn will consider taking necessary legal actions.
Earlier this month, Tech Times reported that millions of Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo emails were being traded in the Russian criminal underworld as part of a big data breach. Across all these platforms, the breach involved more than 200 million accounts.
