It appears to be limited to a portion of the overall user base from the old Myspace platform prior to June 11, , at which point the site was relaunched with added security. Each record contains an email address, a password, and in some cases, a second password. As some accounts have multiple passwords, that means there are over million total passwords available for sale. Despite the fact that this data breach dates back several years, the size of the data set in question makes it notable. Security researchers at Sophos say that this could be the largest data breach of all time, easily topping the whopping million LinkedIn emails and passwords that recently surfaced online from a hack.
That estimation seems to hold up — while there are a number of other large-scale data breaches, even some of the biggest were not of this size.
MySpace announced that a breach had compromised an unspecified number of user accounts. It is unclear exactly when the initial hack occurred, but it was likely at least three years ago.
Fast forward to today. The same month that millions of LinkedIn accounts and passwords were discovered to be up for sale from a hack, In both the LinkedIn and MySpace hacks, the accounts appear to have been compromised at least 3 years ago, but the user information has only recently been made available for sale. So what does all this mean for you? First off, it is critical that if you tend to reuse passwords across multiple sites and have been using the same password you used for MySpace before or LinkedIn before , you must immediately change all passwords, including the MySpace and LinkedIn passwords.
Passwords should be changed frequently, in a way that makes them easy for you to remember, but also not easily cracked. Use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.
If you have the ability to do so, use multi-factor authentication for logins. The good news? You can delete your account completely if you want to fend off attackers. Galloway says she emailed Myspace in April, documenting the vulnerability — and has received nothing more than an automated response.
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