Bitly Compromised : Secure your Account

I decided to use the word compromised rather than hacked since the word “hack” is overused and misused so often.  The Bitly team isn’t making it clear exactly what happened but they have reason to believe that accounts have been compromised.

Bitly

You can read more about the security breach on their related Bitly blog post.  In a moment I’ll share the tips they have offered so far to help you secure your account.  As always if you use the same credentials for other sites you need to change them immediately.

Here are the suggestions Bitly has shared for helping to secure and protect your account from being accessed by someone else:

Following are step-by-step instructions to reset your API key and OAuth token:

1) Log in to your account and click on ‘Your Settings,’ then the ‘Advanced’ tab.

2) At the bottom of the ‘Advanced’ tab, select ‘Reset’ next to ‘Legacy API key.’

3) Copy down your new API key and change it in all applications. These can include social publishers, share buttons and mobile apps.

4) Go to the ‘Profile’ tab and reset your password.

5) Disconnect and reconnect any applications that use Bitly. You can check which accounts are connected under the ‘Connected Accounts’ tab in ‘Your Settings.’

Bitly adds that they have taken care of securing the path that led to the compromise.  Again that answer is vague but I’m hoping they come forward in the days ahead with a more detailed explanation.  For now it’s more important that you secure your Bitly account in case of further problems.

We’ll bring you more information as the details continue to unfold.  Follow us @vpnfan for the latest updates.

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