UPDATED 07:50 EDT / JUNE 08 2012

Want to Know if your LinkedIn or eHarmony Password was Hacked? Here’s How…

Following the revelation that hackers managed to compromise 8 million passwords from social sites LinkedIn and eHarmony, worried users will no doubt be concerned that their own accounts were among the ones which were breached.

While the companies have promised to notify all users whose passwords have been compromised, experts have warned that the hackers responsible for the beach may have more, as yet unpublished, passwords in their possession.

Obviously, users are now going to be even more worried that their accounts were among those that were compromised. Responding to the situation, password management firm LastPass.com has created two simple tools for LinkedIn and eHarmony users to check on the integrity of their passwords.

Before using the tools to check if they’ve been compromised, LastPass advises users to change their passwords first, especially if they use that password with any other social media or email accounts.

To check your Linkedin password, go here.

To check your eHarmony password, go here.

LastPass affirms that using their tool will not compromise any password further, as it works by computing the SHA-1 hash of the password, then sending the hash to LastPass before checking it against the list of known, compromised passwords. The hash is the result of a one-way mathematical algorithm that’s incredibly difficult to reverse – essentially, it reconstructs the password into a character sequence that is so complex that hackers are unlikely to be able to reverse it. The password itself is not sent to LastPass, and nor is the hash of the password stored or logged in their system.

The only risk is with those passwords that use simple words or names found in a dictionary. In these cases, LastPass warn that it may be possible to work out the original password based on the SHA-1 hash. Indeed, this is the reason for all the fuss – it’s far easier to reverse the hash of a simple password than a more complex one that uses a ‘random’ sequence of characters.


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU