LinkedIn hack: You may need to change all your passwords

New Delhi: Following the massive password leak at LinkedIn, believed to have affected over 6 million users, security experts have recommended that LinkedIn users change their passwords immediately.

If you think that by simply changing your LinkedIn password you are safe? Think again. You may need to change many of your online passwords.

The reason is that many users tend to use the same passwords across multiple Web services - such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and other accounts. So whoever stole the LinkedIn data can use the information to access your other online accounts. Therefore it is advisable to update all your passwords which are the same as your LinkedIn password.

LinkedIn hack: You may need to change all your passwords

Following the LinkedIn hacking incident you may need to update many of your online passwords.

You should also consider making your passwords stronger and avoid those that match words in a dictionary. One way is to think of a meaningful phrase or song and create a password using the first letter of each word.

LinkedIn has posted the following update on their blog about the hack:

"Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid.

These members will also receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords. There will not be any links in this email. Once you follow this step and request password assistance, then you will receive an email from LinkedIn with a password reset link.

These affected members will receive a second email from our Customer Support team providing a bit more context on this situation and why they are being asked to change their passwords.

It is worth noting that the affected members who update their passwords and members whose passwords have not been compromised benefit from the enhanced security we just recently put in place, which includes hashing and salting of our current password databases."