The online learning unit of LinkedIn is said to have been hit by a cyber attack. Lynda has reportedly reset the passwords of some of its users as it emerged that an unauthorized party may have accessed its database.
The company has started notifying 9.5 million of its users. Lynda is a subsidiary of LinkedIn and mainly deals with online learning. It has reset approximately 55,000 passwords as a precautionary measure. However, the company stated that there is no evidence yet that the breached data has been made public.
Lynda said, "While we have no evidence that your specific account was accessed or that any data has been made publicly available, we wanted to notify you as a precautionary measure." The breach may have compromised Lynda users' learning data, courses viewed, and contact information.
Lynda's parent company LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft in June this year. The all-cash transaction amounted to $26.2 billion. However, the deal was heavily scrutinized by the regulators for possible anti-trust violations. Lynda was acquired by LinkedIn in a $1.5 billion cash and stock deal.
Under the merger, LinkedIn combined Lynda's content with Microsoft's resources to maximize its potential. The company CEO Jeff Weiner claimed that out of the top 25 Lynda courses, six are related to Microsoft products.
Earlier this year, it was announced that LinkedIn was a victim of an attack in 2012. The company had initially estimated that the attack affected 6.5 million accounts. However, later it emerged that the theft encompassed 117 million accounts. A 29-year-old Russian hacker was apprehended in connection with the data breach.
Lynda has said that it is collaborating with law enforcement authorities to investigate the issue. The news of this breach comes on the heels of another data breach disclosed by Yahoo earlier this month.