LinkedIn, the professional social networking website, has reportedly been hacked, compromising 6.5 million account details.  The news came after a user in a Russian forum claimed responsibility for hacking the networking site, and uploaded 6,458,020 hashed passwords.  No usernames were included, though it is believed that both details were acquired.

Some think that this is just a hoax, but some LinkedIn users reported finding their real LinkedIn password on the leaked list.  LinkedIn hasn’t confirmed if the leak is true but stated that they are looking into the matter.  Hoax or not, there’s nothing wrong if you change your password just to be sure, so to all LinkedIn users out there, CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD!

Aside from the leak, LinkedIn’s calendar mobile app is raising some security issues, as the mobile app transmits data back to the company, said a report from TheNextWeb. LinkedIn was quick to respond, stating that the feature can be turned off, and clarified that data is transmitted over a  secured SSL connection.  To contain the situation, LinkedIn stated that they would no longer collect information stored in the “Meeting Notes” portion of calendar entries.

“In order to provide our calendar service to those who choose to use it, we need to send information about your calendar events to our servers so we can match people with LinkedIn profiles,” said LinkedIn’s mobile app head Joff Redfern. “That information is sent securely over SSL and we never share or store your calendar information.

“In an effort to make that algorithm for matching people with profiles increasingly smarter we pull the complete calendar event, including email addresses of people you are meeting with, meeting subject, location and meeting notes.”