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Amazon resets account passwords feared compromised – report

Book baron keeps mum about reason for emergency emails

Amazon.com appears to be asking some of its customers to reset passwords after a breach of some sort.

The online bazaar apparently sent cryptic emails to some of its account holders warning them that their passwords were blabbed in some way, and therefore have to be changed.

"We 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. We have corrected the issue to prevent this exposure," Amazon is reported to have told customers.

Amazon says it has no evidence that the passwords were abused, and had reset the credentials out of an "abundance of caution."

The web goliath has not yet confirmed the reset to any media, including El Reg, although ZDNet said it scored copies of the emails. If you've received any related messages, let us know, please.

Let's not rush to judgement here: Amazon has oodles of partners and it could well be that the passwords were transmitted in clear text from a third party application or service, a suggestion we make given the seemingly small number of resets. Bezos' book barn may not have been compromised in any way. ®

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