[ by Howard Haykin ] On Friday, LinkedIn co-founder and Exec. Chair Reid Hoffman told CNBC that no customer accounts appear to have been damaged following a cyber attack on professional social networking website LinkedIn.  On Wednesday, LinkedIn confirmed 6.5 million user passwords had been stolen.  LinkedIn has 160 million users in 200 countries, and is an exchange-listed stock that trades around $93 a share - more than double from its IPO pricing. The social network is working with the FBI to investigate the theft of the data.  LinkedIn also said it did not know of any user accounts that had been taken over as a result of the security breach. Phishing Scam. On Thursday, however, it emerged that LinkedIn has been used as part of a “phishing” scam, with approximately 1.5 million LinkeIn users contacted with fake LinkedIn emails requesting their personal information. Customer Passwords. LinkedIn has said it would disable passwords that had been compromised, thereby forcing customers to reset them.  The company also said it sent affected members emails explaining how to change their passwords.

“The company is taking this fully seriously … As far as we can tell there hasn’t been any damage to customer accounts, but the advice we are relaying to customers is for them to change their passwords.” -- Hoffman told CNBC’s 'WorldWide Exchange'.

[CNBC, 6/8/12]