eHarmony Hacked - 1.5 Million Passwords Compromised
It has not been a good 24 hours for online security. Yesterday it was announced that the popular social network LinkedIn had been hacked, with some 6 million user passwords posted onto a Russian hacking website.
Hot on the heels of this news was that of another breach, this time of the popular online dating website eHarmony. The LA Times reveals that the dating site was attacked, compromising around 1.5 million passwords, most of which have already been cracked.
The eHarmony attack is believed to have been carried out by the same hacker that hit LinkedIn. The hacker posted two lists of passwords on the website insidepro.com, with a combined total of 8 million passwords.
The larger list consisted of LinkedIn passwords, with the second belonging to eHarmony. The dating website has confirmed that passwords have indeed been stolen.
The company announced the news in a blog, but did not say how many passwords were stolen. The dating site reset passwords for compromised accounts and emailed those users with instructions on how to reset their passwords.
If you're a member of both sites it would seem sensible to update your password. New research published this month revealed that the majority of passwords are poor quality. The researchers recommended that users adopt a random 9 digit number as their password as this offers a strong level of security, whilst also being something users can remember.
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