In our modern world of social networks, cloud computing and smartphones, data security is now a mainstream issue. One of the largest password leaks ever occurred this past week, with stolen password data from the social network Myspace. (Remember when that was cool?) In this week’s wrap, we will take you through some reactions to the leak, and its impact on both social network brand names and users.
The MySpace password breach, believed to be the work of an unknown hacker who goes by the alias of Peace, supposedly occurred in the summer of 2013. The leak, however, just happened this past week. LeakedSource, a hacked data search engine, claims to have access to the stolen passwords and emails of about 360 million MySpace users. MySpace is now owned by Time Inc., but the breach did not affect any of the company’s financial data.
MySpace said in a statement this past Tuesday that information pertaining to accounts created before June 11, 2013 is at risk. The breach is particularly newsworthy because of the amount of people (hundreds of millions) affected. The hacker known as “Peace” was also reportedly selling the credentials for 6 bitcoin, or about $3,000. It is also worth noting that Tumblr and LinkedIn are dealing with similar data breaches.
Another intriguing aspect of this data breach case is the short period of time in which the data breaches at MySpace, Tumblr and LinkedIn were made public. To protect its customer, MySpace has invalidated all user passwords for the affected accounts created prior to 2013. They have also alerted law enforcement in an attempt to pursue the criminal act. The hack should prompt Internet users to practice good password security and not reuse passwords across multiple sites.
If you have any tips to share on protecting your online privacy, we would love to hear from you in the comments section below!
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Sam Bojarski is an associate at WordWrite Communications. He can be reached at sam.bojarski@wordwritepr.com.
