The Black Friday 2015 shopping season is upon us and Amazon’s big Black Friday sale is in full swing, but some Amazon customers have received an unwelcome gift over the past few days: News that their Amazon account passwords may have been compromised.
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According to a report on Tuesday morning from ZDNet, Amazon has informed some customers that their account passwords may have been compromised. The company has yet to confirm any details to the media, but it said in an email that users’ passwords may have been stored or transmitted insecurely, potentially allowing hackers to intercept the data.
“[Amazon] recently discovered that your password may have been improperly stored on your device or transmitted to Amazon in a way that could potentially expose it to a third party,” the company said in an email to some users. “We have corrected the issue to prevent this exposure.”
Amazon reportedly said it is unaware of any passwords having been obtained by third parties, but it is forcing users to reset their passwords as a precaution.
It is unclear how many Amazon users are impacted by this issue, or whether every potentially impacted customer has already been contacted by Amazon. In light of these unknowns, it may be a good idea to change your Amazon password now as a precautionary measure. If you use the same password on other sites — which is never a good idea — you should change your password on those sites as well.
