After Yahoo! announced a major data breach in 2013 that affected more than 1 billion accounts, another social media network is reporting yet another security attack. Lynda.com, LinkedIn's online learning platform, reported a data breach over the weekend, which involved its users.
9.5 Million Lynda.com Accounts Affected
The hack compromised 9.5 million accounts and accessed learner data information such as names, email addresses, and viewed courses. According to a representative from the company, the passwords used in Lynda.com are all "cryptographically salted and hashed," which means that security measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access.
However, the company is not taking any chances and has reset the passwords for 55,000 accounts, even though there is no evidence yet that these have been breached. The company also said that the credit card information of its users remain safe.
Lynda.com has now started the process of notifying its users through email about the data breach. Users are encouraged to contact Lynda.com's support page for additional questions.
LinkedIn's History Of Data Breach
As in Yahoo!'s case, this is also not the first time that LinkedIn has been a victim of data breach. In 2012, LinkedIn passwords were stolen from the company and sold in an online black marketplace. Initial reports said that only 6.5 million accounts were affected.
However, it turned out that the hacking incident was of a greater magnitude and affected 117 million LinkedIn users. A hacker who went by the name "Peace" attempted to sell the stolen usernames and passwords for 5 bitcoins earlier this year in an online black market.
So far, the two data breach incidents in the site do not appear to be related to each other. LinkedIn also assured that the attack is not in any way related to Yahoo!'s recent disclosure about its data breach.
Why Microsoft Is Concerned
LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com in April 2015 for $1.5 billion. In June, LinkedIn was recently purchased by Microsoft for $26.2 billion after the European Union approved the all-cash acquisition deal.
Microsoft was planning to integrate LinkedIn with some of its products, such as the Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office suite. It was also working on making LinkedIn's learning resources available on Office 365.
Things aren't going so well right now with Microsoft, as the tech giant has not had much success with its past acquisition deals. Its previous mergers with the mobile manufacturer Nokia and the digital agency aQuantive both went south and were written off, causing the company to lose $13 billion.
