LinkedIn is reinvestigating 2012 data breach

LinkedIn is investigating whether a breach of more than 6 million users’ passwords in 2012 was bigger than originally thought following a hacker’s attempt to sell what is purported to be login codes for 117 million accounts.

“It appears that more had been taken then and just posted now,” spokesman Hani Durzy said. “We are still determining how many of these are still active and accurate, since the data would be about four years old now.”

At the time, LinkedIn reset the passwords of everyone it believed was part of the breach, which amounted to 6.5 million users, Durzy said.

Vice Media’s Motherboard website earlier reported that a hacker is selling the emails and passwords of the affected LinkedIn users for about $2,000 and provided about 1 million sample logins for verification.

Bloomberg News

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 4:04 PM with the headline "LinkedIn is reinvestigating 2012 data breach."