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The blog said there had been no confirmation from LinkedIn but "it is being widely speculated that over six million passwords belonging to LinkedIn users have been compromised" and that "Investigations by Sophos researchers have confirmed that the file does contain, at least in part, LinkedIn passwords."
It recommends all LinkedIn users to change their password as soon as possible, and cautions against using the same password for multiple sites, saying: "Although the data which has been released so far does not include associated email addresses, it is reasonable to assume that such information may be in the hands of the criminals."
SHA-1 (secure hash algorithm-1) is a cryptographic hash function designed by the United States National Security Agency and published as a US Federal Information Processing Standard. It is one of three, the others being SHA-0 and SHA-2.
According to Wikipedia "SHA-1 is the most widely used of the existing SHA hash functions, and is employed in several widely used applications and protocols. In 2005, security flaws were identified in SHA-1, namely that a mathematical weakness might exist, indicating that a stronger hash function would be desirable."
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