14 DAY TRIAL // LinkedIn isn’t the only one that’s currently dealing with a potential data breach. Dating site eHarmony has also confirmed that some of their customers’ passwords have ended up online.
According to LA Times, the 1.5 million password hashes, many of which already cracked, may have been leaked by the same individual who published the 6.5 million SHA-1 LinkedIn password hashes.
In a blog post, eHarmony representatives state that they’re currently investigating the incident, but they confirm that “a small fraction” of their user base has been affected.
Until further details become available, as a precaution, the company has reset the passwords of affected members.
The impacted individuals will receive emails with instructions on how to set new passwords, but in the meantime, all customers are recommended to create strong passwords and change them every few months just to be on the safe side.
“Please be assured that eHarmony uses robust security measures, including password hashing and data encryption, to protect our members’ personal information. We also protect our networks with state-of-the-art firewalls, load balancers, SSL and other sophisticated security approaches,” eHarmony’s Becky Teraoka wrote.
If you’re having difficulties changing your eHarmony password, the dating site provides a webpage that contains all the steps that need to be taken to perform the task. The page is available here.
As we have mentioned on previous occasions, including in the article that covered the LinkedIn incident, the main problem in these situations is that the same password is utilized on multiple websites by many internauts.
In this case, even if the affected people change their passwords on LinkedIn and eHarmony, their other accounts may still be exposed.
Stay tuned, as we’ll return with more details as soon as they become available.