Over 6 million passwords hacked from LinkedIn

UNITED STATES (CNN) — The social networking site LinkedIn says it's investigating reports that millions of passwords have been stolen.

A security consultant team says more than 6 million encrypted passwords have been posted on the internet and that hackers are now working together to crack them.

Although the information released so far does not include associated e-mail addresses, the consultant group says it's reasonable to assume criminals may have that information, too.

Users can start to protect themselves by changing their passwords as soon as possible.