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Amazon changing all passwords on account of Gawker Hack
5 points by lachyg on Dec 15, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments
Hello XXXXXXXXXX,

This is an important message from Amazon.com

At Amazon we take your security and privacy very seriously. As part of our routine monitoring, we discovered a list of email address and password sets posted online. While the list was not Amazon-related, we know that many customers reuse their passwords on several websites. We believe your email address and password set was on that list. So we have taken the precaution of resetting your Amazon.com password. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused but felt that it was necessary to help protect you and your Amazon account.

To regain access to your Amazon customer account:

1. Go to Amazon.com and click the "Your Account" link at the top of our website.

2. Click the link that says "Forgot your password?"

3. Follow the instructions to set a new password for your account.

Please choose a new password and do not use the same password you used with us previously. We also highly recommend that you chose a password that you are not using on any other sites. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Sincerely,

Amazon.com

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our website.




I got the same thing from LinkedIn.


As part of our routine monitoring, we discovered a list of email address and password sets posted online.

I don't understand this. What kind of routine checkup involves scouring the web for password lists.


Any large company will routinely have people who monitor the normally security channels (from bugtraq to cert lists) for security alerts that could impact them.


"routine monitoring" is just "reading HN/reddit" translated into business language




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