Amazon LogoI received and email the other day with the subject line of “Your Amazon.com password has been changed”.  This is the sort of email that I don’t like to get because it’s typically either SPAM or represents a problem.  In this case, it represented a BIG problem.

After I’d determined that this email WAS in fact from Amazon.com and not some phishing scam I read through the body of the email and was taken aback:

Hello Greg Bellan,

This is an important message from Amazon.com

At Amazon we take your security and privacy very seriously. As part of our routine monitoring, we discovered a list of email address and password sets posted online. While the list was not Amazon-related, we know that many customers reuse their passwords on several websites. We believe your email address and password set was on that list. So we have taken the precaution of resetting your Amazon.com password. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused but felt that it was necessary to help protect you and your Amazon account.

The email went on to tell me how to update my password and re-secure my account.  I appreciated Amazon proactively reaching out to its customers, especially since this is an email address that I rarely use for account.

Another Security Breach?

I didn’t think anything of this until I received an eerily similar email from the Internet Movie Database a few days later.

Subject: Your IMDb password has been changed

This is an important message from IMDb.com

At IMDb we take your security and privacy very seriously. As part of our routine monitoring, we discovered a list of email address and password sets posted online. While the list was not IMDb-related, we know that many customers reuse their passwords on several websites. We believe your email address and password set was on that list. So we have taken the precaution of resetting your IMDb.com password. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused but felt that it was necessary to help protect you and your IMDb account.

Needless to say, I went through similar steps to update my password on IMDB and realized just how linked Amazon and IMDB were…. not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. While I was going through the reset process with IMDB, I ran across this page that talks about Upcoming changes to IMDb login process.

The Bottom Line

If you’re a user of either Amazon.com or IMDB.com, I’d suggest you go and update your passwords immediately.  There have been several high profile security breaches recently (Target, Home Depot, iCloud, etc.) and you need to make sure you take the necessary steps to secure your information.

Have you received a similar security email recently?  Let us hear from you!

16 thoughts on “Your Amazon.com Password Has Been Changed”
  1. My 2 emails said my password had been changed. It hasn’t. I didn’t click any of the links, but am going to change it just in case.

    1. I received this email today. However, my old password still works. Anyway, I reset my password for amazon.com after logging into my amazon account
      upon checking the resource of this message, it seems not coming from amazon. So i still think this is kind of phishing email

  2. Just got this email – twice – from Amazon. When I went directly to the amazon website (not via the link) and tried my password, it didn’t work. I changed my password.

  3. I have the email as well, (the second one). What really bother’s me is that it clearly states, “your password has been changed”, but it hasn’t, I’m still able to log in with my password.

  4. I’ve had it too, twice, my old password works fine but changed it anyway. What gets me is there are no links and there is no payload so what’s the idea?

    1. This is a good question Erik – I’m pretty sure that if they’ve reset your password, you’ll need to RE-reset it when yhou attempt to login. If that makes sense.

  5. I need help resetting my password. It says it emailed me a link but they haven’t. I CNT get into my account to cancel something I didn’t order. So I can get a refund.

  6. I’m worried that the “forgot my password” process is going to send a link to my email address (for authentication) and it is THAT account that the hackers have access to. They will then use that info to get into my Amazon account and use my credit card to order things.

  7. Ii want to check on my new password. It doesn’t seem to work . I’ very tired of trying it over and over again!

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