Another day, another digital breach. The latest victim of a cyberattack is online learning company Lynda.com, a LinkedIn subsidiary, which sent out an email this weekend to certain users to inform them of a database hack that may have compromised their information. Around 9.5 million users received such an email, as the database in question included contact information and courses viewed. While the majority of users’ passwords were not included in the database, a LinkedIn spokesperson told VentureBeat via email, a small percentage weren’t so lucky.
Fewer than 55,000 Lynda users had their passwords stored in this breached database, and the website has since reset their passwords and alerted users to both the hack and the change. But given that compromised passwords were “cryptographically salted and hashed” and no credit card information was included, it could have been more serious.
“We have no evidence that any of this data has been made publicly available and we have taken additional steps to secure Lynda.com accounts,” the spokesperson added.
While the timing of the latest hack may make some suspicious that it could be linked to Yahoo’s disclosure of an enormous 2013 hack that compromised some one billion user accounts, LinkedIn has assured concerned parties that there is no connection. But that doesn’t really ease the blow all that much — after all, a hack is a hack.
All the same, Lynda is doing all it can to assuage users’ fears. In its email, the site noted, “Please know that we have no evidence that this data included your password. And while we have no evidence that your specific account was accessed or that any data has been made publicly available, we wanted to notify you as a precautionary measure.”
If you have any questions, Lynda encourages you to contact the company through its Support Center.
