Most musicians have forgotten that they ever had a MySpace account, much less remember the password. Millions more use Tumblr as a blogging platform and LinkedIn for business contacts. Now, hundreds of millions of hacked account details from all three are being advertised for sale online.
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Sensitive data from hundreds of millions of MySpace and Tumblr accounts is being sold online, according to multiple security experts. These breaches follow close on the heals of a recent massive LinkedIn hack.
The MySpace and Tumblr breaches may be months or years old. But the data has just gone up for sale, alongside info from LinkedIn. Experts suggest that it may be more than a coincidence. “There’s been some catalyst that has brought these breaches to light and to see them all fit this mould and appear in such a short period of time, I can’t help but wonder if they’re perhaps related, according to online security expert Troy Hunt. “Even if these events don’t all correlate to the same source and we’re merely looking at coincidental timing of releases, how many more are there in the ‘mega’ category that are simply sitting there in the clutches of various unknown parties?”
MySpace Responds
“As part of the major site re-launch in the summer of 2013, Myspace took significant steps to strengthen account security. The compromised data is related to the period before those measures were implemented,” Myspace wrote in a blog post. “We are currently utilizing advanced protocols including double salted hashes (random data that is used as an additional input to a one-way function that “hashes” a password or passphrase) to store passwords.”
What To Do
Users are being urged to change their passwords on all three sites. Despite the breach, you may not want to delete your MySpace account entirely. Time Inc recently bought the site and is planning a relaunch.