I have been impressed with companies that go the extra mile to help you out when you don’t know that you need help, today LinkedIn did just that.
The background is that a large media site Gawker got hacked and exposed logins/passwords for their users. The hackers then used people’s emails and logins that had the same credentials on other sites to send promotional spam about an Acai berry product.
Without any data to show that their network was under attack or being mis-used LinkedIn shut down the accounts of people whose data was on the list of compromised accounts. This is great because if the hackers were planning on attacking this network now they know it will have a lower yield and it saved people who were not compromised from the contagion. Let’s review what LinkedIn did.
- Proactively protected their all of their users from another site’s issue and their own individuals who practice poor security standards. (Check your email/account here)
- Deterred hackers from targeting their site at all.
- Helped educate users who had been compromised that their account was no longer safe.
Well done and this type of proactive efforts are a sign of a company who clearly understands how to help their customers and that you have to be a defensive driver out on the internet. Sometimes you might be doing everything right but you have to watch out for the crazy guy in the next lane.
Silicon Valley Moneyball 