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Following reports that over 6 million LinkedIn passwords have been leaked online, it will come as no surprise to hear that users of the service are being urged to update their account details as soon as possible.

As first reported by Ars Technica yesterday, a hacker has posted almost 8 million 'cryptographic hashes' to the Web, containing passwords which belong to users of the professional social networking site, and a well known dating site.

Although the leaked data does not contain corresponding usernames, other user information may have also been compromised by the hacker, so clearly it is common sense to update your LinkedIn password regardless.

As if that alone isn't enough reason to take 10 seconds to update your password, the site's security editor, Dan Goodin, also points out that "the 6.5 million hashes are likely just those the hackers couldn't crack."

A LinkedIn spokesman confirmed that "some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts" and that an investigation was currently underway to establish how the data was obtained in the first place. The company has also implemented further measures to enhance the encryption of users' details.

You can found out if your password was one of those leaked by using the lastpass website. If like thousands of others, you elected to use "linkedin", "password1" or any other obvious passwords, you will most certainly want to choose a new one!

Some of the 'most depressing' leaked LinkedIn passwords as obtained by buzzfeed, include "hatemyjob", "needajob" and "hopeless".