Spotify user? You may need to change your password

Some customer details posted to website Pastebin in recent days

Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Has Spotify been hacked? The company says no, but users are reporting some strange activity on their accounts with the streaming music service.

According to TechCrunch, a file containing the log-in details of some users was posted on website PasteBin, including user names, passwords, account types and when the accounts renewed.

Some users have claimed their details were changed without their knowledge, including passwords and contact email addresses, in recent days.

Spotify issued a statement to the tech news site saying its records were secure.

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“We monitor Pastebin and other sites regularly. When we find Spotify credentials, we first verify that they are authentic, and if they are, we immediately notify affected users to change their passwords.”

It is not clear how recently the information was gathered from Spotify, with some speculating that the details could have been procured in a previous breach. Hundreds of premium account details were compromised earlier this year when information was leaked online, only months after a similar incident in November last year.

Regardless of when the details were compromised though, Spotify users should probably change their passwords to ensure their accounts stay secure.

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist