The social networking website LinkedIn was hacked Theft on June 5 , 2012 , and passwords for nearly 6.5 million user accounts were stolen Theft by Russian cybercriminals .

Owners of the hacked accounts were no longer able to access Having_or_lacking_access their accounts , and the website repeatedly encouraged Convincing its users to change Change their passwords after the incident Catastrophe .

He also said Statement that the holders of the compromised accounts would find Know their passwords were no longer valid on the website .

The stolen passwords , which were hashed ( i.e .

By the morning of June 6 , passwords for thousands of accounts were available online in plain text .

Graham Cluley of the internet security firm Sophos warned Warning that the leaked passwords could be in the possession of criminals Legality by 6 June .

LinkedIn said Statement , in an official statement Statement , that they would email Sending all its members with security instructions Education_teaching and instructions Education_teaching on how they could reset Change their passwords .

In May 2016 , LinkedIn discovered Know an additional 100 million email addresses and hashed passwords that claimed Statement to be additional data from the same 2012 breach .

In response Response , LinkedIn invalidated Change the passwords of all users that had not changed Change their passwords since 2012 .

In response Response , LinkedIn invalidated Change the passwords of all users that had not changed Change their passwords since 2012 .

The hack is supposed to have leaked Reveal_secret approximately half a million email addresses Name_conferral and passwords associated with Yahoo !

Security experts said Statement that the passwords were not encrypted Communication and the website did not use Using a HTTPS Protocol , which was one of the major reasons of the data breach .

The email addresses Name_conferral and passwords are still available to download Having_or_lacking_access in a plaintext file on the hacker 's website .

The garrison 's warriors allegedly used Using passwords to help them determine friend from foe , while their foes killed Killing many of their own in the confusion .