Gawker breach triggers password-changing requests from Yahoo, Twitter

The compromise of Gawker’s database containing some 1.3 million user login credentials and the realization that a lot of users – despite constantly being advised against it – use weak and obvious passwords and re-use them on many online services, has pushed many of those services to ask their users to effect a password change.

According to the BBC, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and Blizzard (the makers of World of Warcraft) have decided to prevent the possible exploitation of the data made public by Gawker’s attackers and have been advising users to change the passwords to their accounts.

Twitter has also reset the passwords for the accounts that were obviously compromised and were sending out Acai berry themed spam.

Dare we hope that the Gawker breach will finally teach people the importance of using strong and unique passwords for their different accounts?