A hacker known as “Peace” is selling what is reportedly account information from 117 million LinkedIn users. The stolen data is said to include email addresses and passwords, which a malicious party could use to gain access to other websites and accounts for which people used the same password.
LinkedIn says it has about 433 million members worldwide, so this data could represent 27% of its user base.
The hacker says the credentials were obtained during a LinkedIn data breach in 2012 that saw 6.5 million encrypted passwords posted online, according to Motherboard. But the leak now appears to be much larger than was thought at the time. Peace is selling the data for about $2,200 (5 bitcoin) on the Dark Web, the part of the internet accessible only with a special browser that masks user identities.
LinkedIn told Motherboard that it was investigating but could not confirm whether the data was authentic. Spokesman Hani Durzy did, however, say the company didn’t know how many accounts were compromised in the data breach.
Motherboard and Troy Hunt, a security researcher, reached out to possible victims of the data breach and were able to confirm that at least three of the passwords were legitimate.
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