Today there have been several announcements in the Social Media world regarding a significant Data Breach at Linkedin. 6.5 Million users names and Passwords (encrypted) have been accessed illegally from the Linkedin System and Posted publicly on a Russian Hacker Website. Source NextWeb: Bad day for LinkedIn: 6.5 million hashed passwords reportedly leaked – change yours now

It is highly recommended that if you have a Linkedin account you login and change the password at your earliest convenience.

Here are some tips for making Strong passwords:

    1 – Make your password include a variation of Capital letters, numbers and special characters (!, @, $ etc…)
    2 – Longer passwords are harder to guess – use a minimum of 10 characters
    3 – Make it easy to remember but hard to guess – avoid anniversaries, birthdates and the name of your pet/family members
    4 – Think of a short phrase instead of one word – ex: I love Peanut Butter could become : 1L0v3Pe@nutBu773R
    5 – Avoid using common passwords like; password, 123456

This is also another great opportunity to remind you that you should never use the same password across multiple sites, something I think many of us are guilty of. I know I was guilty of this but I looked around and found that LASTPASS was a great option for me – it allows you to store passwords in an encrypted location and access them from any mobile or PC/MAC. It also helps you create strong and secure passwords for any site your create a new account with the Password Generator tool (watch this video to see how it works).

On a side note I would also recommended that you change your linked in Settings to hide your contacts from casual viewers – It’s a privacy thing (for you and your contacts) and can help prevent social engineering due to impersonation of a connection – here is how you make that change:

Settings > Profile > Select who can see your connections > Select “Only you”