[ NA ] Important Security Update and Password Reset

Update: Seems this has been extended to the other realms.

IMPORTANT: A "portion" of Riot's NA account information has recently been compromised and, as a result, Riot is requiring NA players to change their passwords.

"As a measure to make your accounts safer, within the next 24 hours we’ll require players with accounts in North America to change their passwords to stronger ones that are much harder to guess. At such time, you’ll be automatically prompted to change your password when you attempt to log in to the game. If you’d prefer, please click here to change your password now."

Continue reading for more information, as well as mention of new account security features that are in the works.

Here's the announcement, straight from Tryndamere and Ryze:

"The security of your information is critically important to us, so we’re really sorry to share that a portion of our North American account information was recently compromised. 

What we know: usernames, email addresses, salted password hashes, and some first and last names were accessed. This means that the password files are unreadable, but players with easily guessable passwords are vulnerable to account theft. 

Additionally, we are investigating that approximately 120,000 transaction records from 2011 that contained hashed and salted credit card numbers have been accessed. The payment system involved with these records hasn't been used since July of 2011, and this type of payment card information hasn't been collected in any Riot systems since then. We are taking appropriate action to notify and safeguard affected players. We will be contacting these players via the email addresses currently associated with their accounts to alert them. Our investigation is ongoing and we will take all necessary steps to protect players. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to consult the player support knowledge base or reach out to player support directly. 

As a measure to make your accounts safer, within the next 24 hours we’ll require players with accounts in North America to change their passwords to stronger ones that are much harder to guess. At such time, you’ll be automatically prompted to change your password when you attempt to log in to the game. If you’d prefer, please click here to change your password now. 

Additionally, new security features that are currently in development include:

• Email verification: all new registrations and account changes will need to be associated with a valid email address (we’ll also require all existing players to provide a valid email address). 
• Two-factor authentication: changes to account email or password will require verification via email or mobile SMS. 

We’re sincerely sorry about this situation. We apologize for the inconvenience and will continue to focus on account security going forward. 

Thank you,
Marc Merrill
Brandon Beck"

Chager is also over on the forums answering questions and concerns relating to this announcement:

"Hi all, 

My name is Chager and I'm a live producer here at Riot. I wanted to open this thread so we can centralize discussion/questions/concerns about today's security announcement: 

http://beta.na.leagueoflegends.com/e...password-reset 

We'll have Rioters monitoring this forum and the comments section of the front page article for questions, and will also help direct folks to the right areas if you're having trouble resetting passwords or accessing your account. 

Thanks,
-Chager"

As for when the mandatory PW reset will happen, he replied:

"The mandatory password reset is not active yet, but within the next 24 hours we will activate it. Any passwords changed since the end of the maintenance earlier this morning will not be subject to the change as they would have to use the new PW restrictions."