![]() ![]() Hemanshu Nigam, chief executive of security consulting firm SSP Blue, said he advised all LinkedIn members to immediately change their passwords after he heard news of the breach. “If this were to comprise that in LinkedIn’s users minds, it could slow down the growth of new users or limit individuals as repeat users.” “LinkedIn has always claimed part of their strategy is making a better user experience,” said Jim Janesky, director of research at Avondale Partners. The way that the company responds to the theft will play a critical role in determining the extent to which the incident damages LinkedIn’s reputation, experts said. This isn’t the one I go to see pictures of my friend’s new dog,” said Mary Hildebrand, chair of the privacy practice area at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler. “This is the serious social networking site. LinkedIn is a natural target for data thieves because the site stores valuable information about millions of professionals, including well-known business leaders. “There is no guarantee that information may not be accessed, copied, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.” “Since the Internet is not a 100 percent secure environment, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to LinkedIn,” it cautions. “Personal information you provide will be secured in accordance with industry standards and technology,” according to the privacy policy on. Their user statement spells out the steps it will take to protect customer data and the risks customers face. “If they can demonstrate that information hadn’t been comprised, that would certainly give them a defense,” Ferguson said.Ĭompany representatives declined to respond to the criticism of their techniques for protecting passwords or any potential legal implications. He said that LinkedIn could face lawsuits if accounts had been breached since its terms of use say it employs the industry standard for security. There could be legal repercussions for that failure to comply with industry standards, said Gerald Ferguson, an attorney at Baker Hostetler who is an expert on privacy and intellectual property law. Several experts said the company fell down in the way it encrypted, or scrambled, the passwords that were stored in the database.Ĭarr of Taia Global said LinkedIn did not follow an industry standard for encryption, which requires use of a technique known as “salting” that greatly increases the amount of time and computer power needed to crack an encrypted password. Those are positions that typically supervise technology operations and computer security at large corporations.Ĭompany spokeswoman Erin O’Hara said the company did not have managers with those titles, but that its senior vice president for operations, David Henke, oversees LinkedIn’s security team. Some security experts say the company’s data security practices were not as sophisticated as one would typically expect from a major Internet company.įor example, they noted that LinkedIn does not have a chief information officer or chief information security officer. I want to know what they are doing to correct this situation.” SCRUTINIZING PRACTICES “As soon as there was an inkling that there was a breach, they should have been all over this. Laura DiDio, a technology analyst with a consulting firm known as ITIC, said that was not fast enough. “As long as they don’t know what happened here, there is a good chance that it is more widespread than originally thought.”Ĭustomers whose passwords were among those stolen were still getting notified by LinkedIn as of Friday afternoon, days after news of the breach first surfaced. “There is going to be more to come,” said Jeffrey Carr, chief executive of security firm Taia Global. The dearth of information has left some security professionals and customers worried that LinkedIn’s computer systems may have suffered a more serious breach. LinkedIn has hired outside forensics experts to assist as company engineers and the FBI seek to determine how more than 6 million customer passwords turned up on underground sites frequented by criminal hackers.Ĭompany spokesman Hani Durzy said LinkedIn has invalidated the stolen passwords, even though it does not know if any other account information was stolen besides passwords. Some cyber security experts say LinkedIn did not have adequate protections in place, and warn that the company could uncover further data-losses over coming days as it tries to figure out what happened. Several days after news of the theft of the passwords emerged, the site with more than 160 million members still says it has yet to determine the full extent of the breach. The sign up page of is seen in Singapore, May 20, 2011. ![]()
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