LinkedIn wins dismissal of lawsuit seeking damages for massive password breach

Professional social networking service LinkedIn won the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of premium users who had their log-in passwords exposed as a result of a security breach of the company's servers last year. The data breach came to light at the beginning of June 2012, after hackers posted 6.5 million password hashes corresponding to LinkedIn accounts on an underground forum. More than 60 percent of those password hashes were later cracked by hackers. The first complaint against LinkedIn was filed on Jun. 15, 2012, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a Illinois resident and paid LinkedIn account owner named Katie Szpyrka. The complaint alleged that LinkedIn violated its own User Agreement and Privacy Policy by failing to utilize industry standard protocols and technology to protect its customers' personally identifiable information, including email addresses, passwords and log-in credentials. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here