Report: Amazon resets accounts after ‘improper’ password storage

With Black Friday right around the corner, a cyber-security fiasco is the last thing Amazon needs…

A number of Amazon users’ passwords “may have been compromised”, according to a new report.

As a result, the online retail giant is force-resetting “an unknown number of accounts”, as detailed in a ZDNet article.

Several readers of the site reported receiving an e-mail from the company revealing that their Amazon passwords had been reset.

The message was also received on the Amazon.com/.co.uk message centre, which rules out the explanation that this is a phishing scam.

The e-mail reportedly reads as follows:

“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.”

The e-mail goes on to explain that there is no evidence of third-party exploitation, and Amazon is only resetting accounts out of an “abundance of caution”.

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Amazon has yet to officially confirmed the password reset – if you’ve received an e-mail, let us know.

Fortunately, it appears that the issue has affected not all user accounts, as Amazon is only contacting select users.

Has your Amazon password been reset automatically? Let us know in the comments.