LulzSec, the hacker group, are at it again and this time it looks like they have leaked a list of about 62,000 username and passwords to various unknown sites. They tweeted “And as always, LulzSec delivers,” followed by the links to a file-locker site containing the password file before finally adding “62,000+ emails/passwords just for you. Enjoy.” Naturally of course this resulted in some panic and chaos for users and site owners who scrambled to see if their sites/accounts have been compromised. LulzSec later tweeted their pleasure at the “carnage”.
Not too long ago however, the website Writerspace released a statement saying that about 12,000 of those compromised username and passwords were accounts belonging to their site and have said:
“We are in the process of contacting all members impacted by the attack, and we sincerely regret the inconvenience this may cause any of our site members. We want to assure our readers that we take our responsibility for protecting your personal information very seriously.”
Some people think that LulzSec should be thanked for exposing the various weaknesses in security but to hack the accounts of innocent users just seems rather ill-willed, so from what could have been interpreted as a form of vigilantism can now be viewed as downright criminal. Whether or not you think your account to the various websites that you’re part of has been compromised, due to the amount of hacking activity that has taken place the past couple of weeks, perhaps now is a good time to start changing those passwords.