LinkedIn have confirmed that a number of user accounts have been compromised. While they have not published the amount of compromised accounts, a Russian forum user uploaded around 6.5 million encrypted user passwords to demonstrate the security breach took place. While the user names have not been included, it's a pretty good bet that they have also been stolen. You can check this site to see if your password was amongst those stolen.

LinkedIn's security team are currently investigating the situation, posting a blog explaining that affected users will locked out of their account and will receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset the password.

Following this password breach, it is advised that you change your LinkedIn password. Using a strong password decreases the risk of a security breach. Here are some best practices for choosing a password:

• Think of a password that is not in the dictionary
• Harden your password by substituting letters for numbers or punctuation that look similar, for example "!" for "i" or "4" for "a"
• Using 8 or more characters will make your password harder to crack
• Don't use the same password on every site
• Never give anyone your password

I just changed my LinkedIn password and discovered that doing so is not as obvious as you might think. Follow the steps below to change your password:

• Log in to LinkedIn
• Click Settings from the menu on the top right

• Click Account

• Click Change Password

• Enter your old and new password (following the best practices above)