Spotify denies user details hacked after passwords show up online
It's time to change your Spotify password.
A data dump of hundreds Spotify usernames, passwords and other personal user details has surfaced online in what points at a security breach.
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The list, which was posted to website Pastebin, highlights -- in addition to personal information -- the type of user account compromised, such as one with a family or premium subscription.
While the streaming service denies a hack has occurred, TechCrunch confirmed with some of the users on the list that their log-in credentials were indeed legit. Spotify suffered a data breach back in 2014, but it appears the accounts were compromised in the past few days.
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According to the report, some Spotify users discovered their passwords and email addresses attached to accounts were recently changed without authorization. Others spotted new songs saved to playlists they didn’t manually add.
Despite users reporting shady activity, Spotify told Mashable it denies it is a part of a large-scale hack.
“Spotify has not been hacked and our user records are secure. We monitor Pastebin and other sites regularly. When we find Spotify credentials, we first verify that they are authentic, and if they are, we immediately notify affected users to change their passwords.”
The company added it is currently looking into the data dump to see if it is authentic.
It’s unknown as of now if third-party log-in platforms such as Facebook were affected, but some users noted other accounts were hacked due to re-using the same password in more than one place. It's a good reminder to never use the same password twice.
Bonus: Here's how you unlock the secret emoticon keyboard on your iPhone
Topics Cybersecurity Music
Samantha Murphy Kelly was the Deputy Tech Editor for Mashable, where she covered lifestyle tech and entertainment. She joined the Mashable team in 2011 and was based in New York.Samantha is regularly featured on national TV broadcasts -- including Fox, Fox Business, CNBC, the BBC and HuffPost Live -- contributes to radio segments (NPR, Wall Street Journal Radio) and has served as a panelist and moderator at conferences.Before joining Mashable, Samantha covered the tech industry as a senior writer for TechNewsDaily and wrote stories for sister publications LiveScience.com and Laptop Magazine. Her stories have been syndicated to various sites including CNN, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News and CBS News. She also spent five years at a retail trade magazine writing about social media and technology, worked at ABC News in the Brian Ross investigative unit and got her start in journalism at CourtTV.com, where she reported on high-profile court cases. She’s a graduate of New York University with a degree in journalism.Samantha has taught English in Thailand, climbed Mt. Fuji in Japan and has a thing for pizza.
