Many popular websites have told millions of users to reset their password in response to the hacking of gossip site Gawker.
A group hacked Gawker and posted the details of 1.5 million users, including their passwords, email addresses and usernames online. Since many people use the same password for the different sites they frequent, spammers were able to log into users’ accounts on other sites like Twitter, where they posted tweets about acai berries. In response, Twitter has told users to change their passwords.
Other sites are taking precautions in fear that they will be next. Facebook is forcing users who have leaked passwords to verify their identity before signing in, though people who used Facebook Connect to log onto Gawker are not affected. Yahoo and World of Warcraft have also made users change their passswords. LinkIn disabled the passwords of all affected users, who now have to reset their password using the password recovery system.
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Gawker itself has a red banner at the top of their website that reads “Gawker Commenting Accounts Compromised, Change Your Passwords.”
