Netflix checks if passwords prevent users in recent major hacks
Netflix checks if its users reuse passwords on sites whose login credentials have been leaked recently, including LinkedIn and MySpace. The company will notify users if their Netflix password matches a leaked password.
Netflix is also taking the precaution to reset the relevant password, the company told security researcher Brian Krebs. Facebook, for example, also uses these kinds of techniques, Krebs writes. Netflix would use a tool called Scrumblr for this, which can search internet pages for certain data.
Krebs adds that this does not mean that Netflix stores users’ passwords in an insecure manner. Much of the leaked passwords have already been cracked, and the company just needs to create an internal hash of the password using its own algorithm. The resulting hash can then be compared with your own database.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also used the same password on several sites. For example, strangers under the name ‘OurMine Team’ managed to gain access to his Twitter and Pinterest accounts on the basis of leaked login data. It turned out that his password was “dadada” in both cases. However, Zuckerberg rarely used Twitter, a total of only 19 times.
On Monday, it emerged that the data of 100 million users of the social network VK.com were also leaked, in addition to databases of LinkedIn, Tumblr and MySpace.