Reading the words Spotify was hacked shouldn’t be a complete shock for anyone in this day and age as it seems to become more common when you’re a big fish. Bigger companies become easier targets because they’re more in the public eye, have more users, and potentially have more for hackers to gain by attempting a successful data breach. Recently Spotify was the target of data hack that directly affects Android users, thankfully if you use Spotify on any other platform Spotify says that you’re ok. So what should you do now that the breach is out in the open?
First things first you should take the most obvious step of changing your password for your Spotify account. Any time there is any sort of hack or data breach for a company or service that you’re associated with and subscribe to, changing your password is just a given. Spotify also mentions that an update is being put out for the Spotify application on Android, and that users should update the application when prompted to do so. For those of you that may have update notifications turned off, you can simply navigate to the Play Store app, go to the “my apps” section and check to see if the update is available.
There is one downside to proceeding with the update for the Spotify app though. If you frequently save playlists for offline use, the update apparently deletes those playlists according to Spotify themselves. It may be an unfortunate thing but it’s a necessary evil to help protect against the specific vulnerability that allowed hackers to breach Spotify security and gain access to potentially sensitive information. Spotify states that there has only been one user so far whose information was gained, and that the information wasn’t sensitive in any way which should be good news for anyone else who is worried. Another point made by Spotify is that users should only be attempting to download and install the Spotify app from three specific locations, which include the Play Store, the Amazon App Store, and from Spotify’s own website. Any attempts to download the Spotify app from other sources could put you at risk, which you don’t want right?