A hacker in Russia is claiming to have stolen 6.46m passwords from LinkedIn. The claim comes the same day the business social network was forced to make changes to its iOS and Android app settings over security fears.
According to a Norwegian IT news site Dagens IT, the hacker posted the 6.46m passwords on a Russian hacker site.
The passwords were posted in a hashed – encrypted with SHA-1 – format that may easily be hacked.
So far, 300,000 passwords have been cracked.
The hacker responsible appears to have been appealing to other hackers to help him crack the passwords.
LinkedIn app furor
The news comes the same day it emerged that LinkedIn had to make changes to its iOS and Android apps because it emerged meeting notes from the calendars on users’ phones were being transmitted over its network.
LinkedIn denied it stored any of this data on its servers and says it has tightened up settings for its iOS and Android apps.
