Mark Zuckerberg's Pinterest And Twitter Accounts Hacked Via LinkedIn Password Breach
It doesn't matter who you are or how much money you make, if you don't practice good security habits on the web you're likely to get hacked. Case in point, Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire whiz kid and co-founder of Facebook, the most popular social media site on the planet, had his Twitter and Pinterest accounts hacked into over the weekend.
To be fair, Zuckerberg is a bigger target than most people, but that wasn't the real reason his social media accounts outside of Facebook were compromised. It's because he was lazy with security, both with the password he chose and in reusing the same one for multiple websites and services. That's a major no-no if you care at all about staying in control of your accounts.
The hacking group OurMine Team took responsibility for the hacks, though it wasn't a sophisticated security breach by any means. All they did was comb through the data from the LinkedIn password dump from a few weeks ago, find Zuckerberg's login details, and try those same credentials on other websites.
To be fair, Zuckerberg is a bigger target than most people, but that wasn't the real reason his social media accounts outside of Facebook were compromised. It's because he was lazy with security, both with the password he chose and in reusing the same one for multiple websites and services. That's a major no-no if you care at all about staying in control of your accounts.
The hacking group OurMine Team took responsibility for the hacks, though it wasn't a sophisticated security breach by any means. All they did was comb through the data from the LinkedIn password dump from a few weeks ago, find Zuckerberg's login details, and try those same credentials on other websites.
Ouch. Mark Zuckerberg's social media accounts have been hacked pic.twitter.com/KvVmXOIg5s
— Ben Hall (@Ben_Hall) June 5, 2016
LinkedIn's data breach actually dates back to 2012, at which time 6.5 million encrypted passwords were posted to the web. Then more recently, a hacker who goes by the name "Peace" shopped around account information belonging to 117 million LinkedIn users. LinkedIn locked affected accounts and sent out notices to those affected, but there's not much it can do about people using the same login credentials on multiple sites, as Zuckerberg did.
The affected accounts have now been secured. Furthermore, Facebook issued a statement saying that none of its accounts were accessed or affected by this incident.
The affected accounts have now been secured. Furthermore, Facebook issued a statement saying that none of its accounts were accessed or affected by this incident.
